Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the statistics that were published by the National Treatment Purchase Fund up to the end of January 2018. Some of those figures were published in two newspapers over the weekend. The difficulty is that one can never quite tell to what exact period of time they refer.

There is a slight variance in the two publications that I read in the Sunday newspapers yesterday in that regard. My understanding is that the National Treatment Purchase Fund's latest figures up to the end of January 2018 show that 52,319 children were waiting for an appointment with a consultant. That is a seriously large figure.

Looking closer at the figures I am advised that 15,807 of them are waiting more than one year. The next category of 8,726 children are waiting a longer period, over and above 18 months. That is a really shocking revelation.

I accept there were complications and there may be reasons for some of them but at a time when we are talking about prosperity and the country getting back on its feet again, we must focus specifically on all waiting lists but in particular those affecting children. At some time in the future, when the Minister is back in the House talking generally about health perhaps we could have a segment of the debate on children and the length of time they are on waiting lists and what can be done in terms of increasing the appointment of consultants, bed capacity and whatever is needed. Let us get some guidance and hard information.

The figures have been discussed on the radio today. It is important that we would have some clear facts. Perhaps the first thing I will ask the Leader is to ascertain what the current position as of the end of January so that we can compare the figures and then perhaps when the Minister is next in the House a segment of his engagement with us can deal specifically with children and waiting lists.