Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I agree with the Deputy. I am also conscious that we have increased the referral pathways for diagnostics, from physios for example. They are all good things, but they increase the number of referrals and, therefore, the waiting time. It is particularly important that the Deputy highlighted a case like that of his mother, who was referred for a scan and really needed it. There is the contrast with an emergency scan in a hospital that might step across her scan. So many people in Ireland are quietly waiting for a scan and are concerned by that.

The focus on urgent and emergency care can take from that in some ways, so we have to try to do both. I fully respect what the Deputy says about the expansion of diagnostics, the referral pathways, the ease with which people can get the scans more quickly, how we can utilise our existing efficiencies and then, as we build, including with the surgical hubs, how we can consider using those diagnostics in the broader way. We really need more radiologists and radiographers as well. We also need them to be rostered five over seven.

See this speech in context