Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to play politics with this either because I accept Deputy Curran's bona fides on this. I would just make the point that the confidence and supply agreement did commit to €15 million so in fairness to Deputy Curran's party and the Government, I think we are doing more than we said we would do together through confidence and supply. I would make the point, which the Deputy would recognise, that the funding for the NTPF is not the totality of funding on waiting list initiatives. In fact, it is still very much at the margins. As the Deputy rightly says, the HSE has a budget of over €17 billion. I would make the point, particularly when Deputy O'Reilly is here, that it is not all for outsourcing either. An awful lot of it can and should be used on in-sourcing. I have met all the hospital groups in recent days and weeks and have asked them to put forward their proposals for in-sourcing. For example, we have opened a cataract theatre in Nenagh as a result of that. I must also make the point that outpatient waiting lists were not published until a few years so people who say the lists are at a record high are not comparing like with like. The previous figures were never published.

We have seen a lot of progress, for example, with regard to cataracts. At the end of July 2017, there were 10,024 people on the waiting list. This figure has dropped to 6,626 at the end of September so we have an awful lot more to do with regard to this. I am always happy to allocate more funding in this regard. We will work our way through this in the service plan.

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