Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister's comments. Next year, we will spend €40,000 every minute on our health service. We have seen in the past, however, that just throwing money at our waiting lists does not work within our health service. We need to see structural reform and not just reward those who work within our private hospitals.

In the programme for Government in 2016, for example, a commitment was secured to look at expanding the Sligo hospital cataract surgery model, which had slashed waiting times by providing the follow-up care in the community by ophthalmologists. Five years later, the only expansion of that service has been to Letterkenny University Hospital where today, just 32 people are awaiting cataract surgery. Is it not ironic that two of the closest hospitals to Northern Ireland have slashed their waiting lists and people from Munster have to travel as far as Belfast to get cataract operations?

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