Mr. Liam Woods:

The Deputy's point about theatre utilisation is clearly a very important one for us. As Mr. Reid said, we are doing a piece of work looking at theatre efficiency generally. Trauma theatres run well past 8 p.m. We are funding the use of elective theatres as best we can through the access to care programme, to drive as much activity as we can to catch up on backlogs. I hear the example that the Deputy has referenced. I would be interested in getting more detail. However, I am not aware that that is a general situation. In fact, I am aware that there is a strong demand for additional theatre capacity and a great desire on the part of our surgeons to use it. The Deputy raised a point about theatre assistants. The HSE has looked at that. The process was somewhat interrupted by the duration of Covid, but it is an area that clinically we would like to develop. As the Deputy has stated, it would be a sensible addition to drive more throughput through theatre. There has been some work done recently looking at utilisation and the possibility of further enhancing theatre utilisation. That piece of work is being supported at the moment.