Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Health is developing the general scheme of legislation to provide for the continuation of a scheme that is tantamount or equivalent to the cross-border directive in order that the services can continue to be availed of.

I want to finish the point on the cataracts and I acknowledge that it is not the only issue. In addition to the enhanced facilities at the South Infirmary, a new medical ophthalmology service funded by the South/South West Hospital Group is due to commence in August and will be based in St. Mary's health campus in Gurranabraher. The service will be provided following the recent appointment of two new additional medical ophthalmologist consultants and support staff. It will enable the streamlining of medical and surgical cases providing improved patient access. It will be clinically tasked with reviewing 3,000 patient referrals on current outpatient waiting lists. That is a very important reform.

I have looked at the breakdown of the services that people need in Northern Ireland when they have travelled there. When it came to day-case specialties, ophthalmology was by far the largest with over 1,300. The number for orthopaedics was 125 and for general surgery it was 53. The Deputy is right to say that when it comes to outpatient specialties in surgery and so on, orthopaedics also represents a very significant number. We need to fix that issue so that those services are provided here.

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