John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

While that is bad, there are worse cases. I was shocked by some of them. To be fair to the HSE, it made some degree of progress between the first and second meeting. To put this in context, responses to 139 parliamentary questions of all questions submitted in 2009 remained outstanding in August. That figure has since decreased to six. I am not saying that is acceptable. We need to map out what the issue is and try to address it by meeting on a regular basis with the HSE to try to improve the standard. I acknowledge that in Deputy Ó Caoláin's case a response is outstanding since last summer. It is important we get the system up to date, which unfortunately is not the case.

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