Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I remember three or four years ago, the Taoiseach spoke in very convincing terms about dramatically reforming the health service, money following the patient, the Dutch model and the fact that everybody would be treated on time and nobody would have to wait ever again. The figures published last Friday tell a different story. One in every eight patients on a hospital waiting list is in the queue for more than one year. That is 50,000 on an outpatient waiting list for more than one year, which is a 400% increase from January to now. In Tallaght hospital alone, close to 7,000 patients have been waiting for more than one year.

In Waterford there are 6,342 waiting. The figures are bad elsewhere, with more 4,500 waiting in Galway and so forth. A total of 46,000 people have been waiting more than eight months for a hospital appointment. The Government set the eight month target, which is higher than previous ones. On the inpatient waiting lists the numbers have soared from 1,764 to approximately 9,693 in about seven months, that is an increase of 450%. There are approximately 5,000 children on an inpatient waiting list, approximately 2,000 of whom have been waiting for longer than 20 weeks, which was the target the Government set.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, had set a target of three months for children and six months for adults and had broadly achieved those targets across most disciplines where people required elective surgery. The former Minster for Health, Deputy Reilly, changed those targets arbitrarily. He got rid of the NTPF and there have been dishonest and flawed budgets since. In last year’s budget €200 million was taken from hospitals. There has been appalling mismanagement and there are over 200 vacancies for consultants. The Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, is saying it will get worse before it gets better. How much worse will it get for children and adults having to wait for hospital treatment? Does the Taoiseach accept that the commitments he personally gave three or four years ago on waiting times and lists are simply in tatters and that urgent intervention is required to turn this around?

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