Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Let us be clear on this point. The HSE is in receipt of €15 billion in Exchequer funding. Its funding has increased by more than 10% per annum in recent years. The allocation is based on the HSE's assessment of need, as is the case with every other agency. I am not sure if the Deputy is advocating that any sector, health, education or otherwise, should disregard its agreed annual allocation and incur a huge over-spend. That is not possible. The HSE is not advocating it should do this. It has, having examined its figures at the end of five months, noted it has to date spent almost €300 million of its €15 billion allocation and has taken corrective action. I understand that will affect only a few hundred of its 120,000 posts over the remainder of the year. The Deputy should put this in scale.

I do not want to get into the mathematics of this. However, the Deputy made a statement in respect of the number of people on hospital waiting lists. There has been a dramatic improvement in regard to hospital waiting lists. From the benchmark used by the HSE, the number of people on waiting lists for surgical admissions and in other fields has been halved in recent years. I accept people remain on hospital waiting lists and I agree no one should have to wait for more than 12 months for treatment — I have no difficulty agreeing with this — but the HSE has dramatically increased its throughput.

I accept that anyone waiting for a medical appointment suffers a certain amount of anxiety. However, recently published independent research carried out by the UCD School of Public Health and Population Science in respect of hospital waiting lists states that waiting times for hospital admissions for 91% of patients is less than three months, with 76% of in-patients stating they were admitted to hospital immediately upon being told they needed admission. A further 11% of people were admitted within one month and a further 4% were admitted within three months. I am not saying that is perfect but it is not bad. It is a significant improvement on the position at any time during my career in this House. That must be taken into account. The survey also examined what people had to say in terms of GP and inpatient services and referred to people's high level of satisfaction with hospital services. Some 83% of hospital inpatients felt they had been treated with dignity and respect, 83% of inpatients would recommend the service to another and two thirds of inpatients and almost 60% of outpatients rated their experience as excellent or very good.

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