Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My understanding from my constituency work is that the applications made in August are the ones being processed at present, so the turnaround is in excess of three months. We want it back to 20 working days if at all possible. In the most recent exchange the Minister and I had on this issue on Question Time, I pointed to the farce whereby newspapers in Northern Ireland were carrying advertisements from the private hospitals in our State looking for patients to come to avail of the cross-border directive. Similarly, in our provincial and national newspapers here we have advertisements from the private hospital sector in Northern Ireland looking for patients to travel to Northern Ireland's clinics and hospitals to avail of the cross-border directive. There is a good case for more direct funding for the National Treatment Purchase Fund and use of the capacity within our own private hospital sector rather than having people trek from one end of our island to the other. We should maximise the capacity within our own hospital system as much as possible.

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