Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will reiterate the point I already made. That is why it must be about reforming the system. It has to be about looking at what we are doing in the acute hospital setting that we could do in the primary care setting. For example, recently, we had the primary care eye review. Ophthalmologists working in the community pointed out they can do much of what their counterparts do in hospitals. This would free up hospitals to do more complex and expensive procedures. High-volume and often relatively low-level complexity cases can be dealt with in primary care. That is why we need to do more of that. We need to shift more and I will show that when we publish the 2018 service plan.

We are making progress with waiting lists. If the Deputy wants to believe my statistics or not, it is up to him, but they are the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, statistics. The number of persons on the active waiting list for a hospital operation or procedure has fallen for the past three months and is now at its lowest in 12 months. The number of people waiting for an outpatient appointment has fallen for the past two months. The overall number on those lists has fallen over the past two months.

We have a hell of a lot more to do, however. It must be remembered we are coming from a lost decade of investment in public services. I am not going to make the mistakes made in the Celtic tiger by reducing the debate to purely one about funding. Even if one gave an extra €1 billion on top of the budget without reforming the system, it will not be sustainable in the future.

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