Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My apologies, I meant reimbursed.

On Deputy Howlin's question on support staff, the Government will of course honour its agreements. There may be different interpretations as to what the agreement says and how it is to be implemented, but we will of course honour agreements made with staff.

Deputy Burton asked about memorandums. To the best of my recollection there was a memo last July but I may be incorrect on this. The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, is working on the heads of the Bill and these will be ready to go to Cabinet in May. Given previous missed deadlines, I do not know if I can stand over that date. Once the heads of the Bill go to Cabinet, legislation will be published and then we are in the hands of the Houses. A lot of legislation has, unfortunately, been held up in this House and the other House by the Opposition.

Deputy Martin asked about outpatient waiting times and I acknowledge that they are very bad, very long and getting worse. The Deputy mentioned my time as the Minister for Health. I might also recall that during Deputy Martin's time as the Minister for Health he did not publish the outpatient waiting lists. They were kept secret and not published so the public would not know how long they were. We have adopted a different approach in being much more transparent about these things. The most important thing is what can be done about it. Obviously, additional clinic capacity-----

See this speech in context