Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with everything the Deputy just said. Therefore, where do we start? We start as a Parliament and a Government by saying that the waiting lists before Covid-19 arrived were completely unacceptable. They are higher now because of Covid-19 and a cyberattack. The current situation is completely unacceptable. We must, therefore, act. It is my absolute priority as Minister for Health and a priority for all Ministers of State in their respective areas.

Right now, we have 760,000 patients on the acute hospital inpatient day case, outpatient and gastrointestinal scope lists. A higher figure of approximately 900,000 is often quoted, although this includes people who have appointments for scheduled care cancellations and suspensions and so forth. On top of the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, list, however, as the Deputy rightly said, there are people waiting in the community. People are waiting on mental health and disability services and on diagnostics. The situation is very serious indeed.

At the beginning of this month, I published an acute waiting list action plan. The plan was drawn up between my Department, the HSE and the NTPF. It is using the €210 million access to care fund that I allocated for this year to improve access immediately. The plan is to fund an approximate additional 150,000 interventions for people who are on those lists. As I know the Deputy will appreciate very well, the waiting lists are continuing to rise and the no-policy change numbers go up a lot. The first thing we must do, therefore, even though we are dealing with a pandemic and a rise in Covid-19 again, and even though our hospitals are under pressure, is to stop the increase and then use every resource available to the State to bring it down. I can tell the Deputy that all four Ministers with responsibility for health are absolutely committed to doing everything that can be done in their respective areas to get people the treatment they need.

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