John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the reply. In the opening part of the reply, he mentioned that spending has gone up by 150% from what it was a number of years ago. Yes, it has because it came off the back of a very low base. I am glad to see the Minister acknowledge and identify the procedures that are being carried out.

I do not want to play politics with it but I want to be very serious. A decade ago, we were spending more than €75 million on the NTPF at a time when the total health budget was considerably less than the €17 billion it is today. The Minister quite rightly identified the various procedures, including 40,000 people on the outpatient list who can be targeted this year. I am concerned that he is not ambitious enough in respect of the NTPF. Over the past number of years, these lists across outpatients and so forth have grown very significantly. There is an opportunity to be more ambitious. I would have hoped that the budget for the NTPF this year would have been more like €100 million rather than €75 million and that we would have a really ambitious programme. I say that on the day when the Taoiseach stood where the Minister now stands and said that if anybody had any suggestions for the extra €1 billion in health, they should tell him. I am suggesting that a small portion of it could be directed at the NTPF with very specific targets.

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