Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will take the two paragraphs at the end of the Minister of State's statement, because that is the only part of his reply that addresses the question. I accept his bona fides. Covid-19 has nothing to do with this. How the replacement of two modular theatres has taken from September 2017 until the end of 2021 should be the subject of an inquiry. A brand new hospital could have been built in that time. There is something seriously wrong.

The Minister of State mentioned the NTPF. Not a single patient on these waiting lists has been referred through the National Treatment Purchase Fund. I have my own difficulties with the NTPF, but it is there as a matter of Government policy. I have asked why none of these patients has been referred through the NTPF, despite waiting times of more than four years. I have received no answer.

Language fails me.

I will go back to using the surgeon's language. As the Minister of State will be aware, surgeons are not known for their radical nature or for writing letters. I refer again to the letter from the consultant surgeon in March 2019, addressed to all Deputies and many more people besides. It describes the problem as "too big for management to address" and "a growing regional crisis". The surgeon states: "This situation is becoming unbearable for the patients who are on the waiting list and are clinically worsening as they wait to be admitted for surgery." I can give the Minister of State a copy of the letter. It is dated. The situation is now worse. It is now 2020; the letter was written in 2019. I absolutely despair of the reply, notwithstanding the Minister of State's bona fides, because it gives me only two paragraphs that relate to the question. How could it take this long? Where is the sense of outrage in the Department that two modular theatres could not go up and, in the meantime, alternative provisions be made?

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