Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

The other issue, and the Minister of State touched on it, is the number of people opting to go private. Often, parents are putting their hands in their pockets or borrowing money to access care for their children or young adults. It is important for the HSE to do work on this aspect. I understand the Minister of State does not have these figures and that they are not readily available. Whatever means are available and at the HSE's disposal in terms of surveying must be used to find out what percentage of these 1,700 new cases emerging every year are being forced to make the decision to go private because of the lack of capacity in the public system. This is an element that really needs to be looked at. Not only is it perhaps delaying and impacting treatment and creating divisions between the private treatment they are paying for and the other community supports they could return to, it is also putting families under real hardship at a time when people need to get access to urgent care.

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