James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy should allow me to finish. We discovered that 380,000 people were on the waiting list. This is an issue that the Fianna Fáil Party in government ignored because it did not want to count the number waiting or tell people the truth. We were up-front in stating how many people were waiting.

I stated it was an awesome figure but that it had to be put in context because 200,000 outpatients were seen every month. We will deal with this matter in the same way as we dealt with that relating to inpatient waiting times, namely, by catering for those who have been waiting longest first. There are no longer 386,000 on the list. Since we first discovered this issue in March and counted and validated the numbers involved, there has been a huge reduction. We will be dealing with that issue in the context of a later question. I intend to deal with the service plan now.

The year ahead will be challenging. I am pleased that we were able to obtain some extra money during the course of the consideration of the validation process relating to some of the figures involved. This will reduce the need to examine the medical card issue. Frankly, I did not believe that was possible. I reassure Deputies that a figure of €23 million, not €133 million, will be sought on the probity side. This will allow people who are possession of medical cards to rest assured that those who are entitled to them will remain so entitled, that there will be no change to the eligibility criteria during the coming year and that the normal probity measures will be used when validating medical cards-----

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