Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

With the roll-out of the vaccine against Covid-19 under way, plans have been put together for how and when people will be given the vaccine. Plans have also been drawn up so that schools can fully open in the very near future and for when restrictions on business and social interactions might be eased or lifted, but the plans that I have heard little about are those for how our health system will return to some kind of normality. Thousands of elective surgeries have been put back and cancer screening services disrupted while our hospitals struggle to cope with the wave of Covid-19 patients. That has left the entire health system with a huge challenge going forward. Latest figures show that almost 900,000 people are on the waiting list for treatment in hospitals in Ireland, an increase of almost 12% on this time last year. Of those, more than 600,000 are waiting for their first hospital outpatient consultation. Shockingly, more than 280,000 of those have been waiting for a year or more to be seen for their first appointment. That is even more than the number of people who have been waiting at least a year for hospital treatment with the NHS in England, serving a population 11 times greater than that of the Republic of Ireland. In England, 5% of the total number on the waiting list have been waiting a year or more; in Ireland that figure is 45%. It goes without saying that Covid-19 is not entirely responsible for this but the pandemic has turned what was a crisis in our health service into a disaster. We are not just talking about figures. Every one of these people is a mother, father, son, daughter, sister or brother who, in many cases, desperately needs help to ease pain and suffering. Bringing hospital services back even to the so-called normal levels of pre-Covid times will be an enormous and costly task. According to the ESRI, it could cost more than €1 billion to clear the hospital waiting list caused by Covid-19. Regardless of the cost, it simply cannot be delayed. A task this huge requires the establishment of a special task force that would identify what needs to be done, come up with a plan of concrete action and have real power to clear any obstacles. Private hospitals should be commissioned to play their part in the recovery in the same way they were brought in to help the country handle the early wave of the Covid-19 emergency.

What are the Government's plans to restore vital hospital services and clear the record waiting lists? Will it employ the services of the private sector in doing this? Will it Government agree to establish a task force to oversee the recovery of our health service that is causing so much pain and anxiety.

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