This question relates to healthcare waiting lists. At various points during a meeting of the health committee, I asked about the total number of people on waiting lists. I am unsure as to whether that information can be provided in the format I want. I received some information yesterday, but it did not include people awaiting diagnostic scans or planned procedures. When will we see the multi-annual waiting list plan that was promised some time ago?

I thank the Deputy for his question. The 2022 waiting list plan is part of a multi-annual approach to reduce waiting times. Most importantly, it focuses in the first instance on long waiters to meet the Sláintecare targets.

We now have three-year waiting list plans. A great deal of effort was made on waiting lists in the last quarter of 2021, which resulted in a reduction of 5% in the lists. It was a successful activity. That effort transferred into the €350 million waiting list plan for this year, which mainly focuses on hospital waiting lists. It also focuses on, and makes an investment in, community waiting lists. Under the budget, a significant allocation has been made for next year.

The most important message is that, despite the challenges of Covid, including Omicron, the plan is working. I will cite a few examples. The number of patients waiting more than a year for an outpatient appointment has fallen by nearly 25% in the year to date, which is a large decrease. The number of patients waiting more than 12 months for an outpatient appointment has fallen by nearly 40% of the Covid peak in March 2021 and the number waiting more than six months for a procedure has fallen by a third since September 2020. A great deal of progress is being made and more is being provided for in next year's budget.

Regarding a multi-annual plan, something that we are addressing is recurrent funding. Much of this year's funding was one-off funding. Through the 2023 budget, we have allocated approximately €125 million to recurrent funding. One of the permanent changes that are being made is being led by Dr. Colm Henry and involves approximately 30 initiatives to accelerate specific patient pathways.

I acknowledge that there has been a reduction in the number of long waiters, which is important, but the Minister will accept that the overall waiting lists are still too high. For some time, I have called for the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, to publish all waiting lists. Currently, it only publishes acute hospital waiting lists. For transparency purposes, it would be better if community, diagnostic, mental health, children's disability network team and other specialised waiting lists were published so that we could capture what was happening.

I welcome the new public-only hospital consultant contract, which will play an important part in making consultants more available in our hospitals, particularly at weekends and after 6 p.m. on weekdays. I hope that it will result in more consultants joining the system. Selling the contract and, in so doing, attracting more consultants into the public system must be a priority for us all.

I agree with the Deputy's first point, in that we need a single consolidated waiting list view. Among other measures, we need electronic patient records to achieve this. Many patients are on many different waiting lists and they all get counted as individual patients. We are making a significant investment in e-health and electronic patient records.

I acknowledge the Deputy's support for the consultant contract. This morning, I heard the public contributions he made yesterday. I thank him and his party. I acknowledge that other Opposition Members have also supported it. This contract is a core part of Sláintecare and is something that we are all behind. A united front in the Oireachtas is important. As the consultant bodies rightly say, we need to hire many more consultants. One of the ways to do so is for Oireachtas Members and the consultant bodies to back the contract and encourage consultants to stay in or return to Ireland so that we can hire more into our public health service.

It is important that we welcome the contract and attract more consultants. In tandem with that, though, I have been hearing from consultants for many years that they need more access to hospital equipment, including diagnostic equipment, and surgical theatre capacity. We will ratchet up the number of consultants working in our public system, but many of the current cohort are battling as we speak to get access to precious surgical theatre capacity. This is an important issue.

We need to consider consultant packages, by which I mean ancillary staff such as nurses, healthcare assistants and junior doctors, surgical theatre capacity and hospital equipment, including public diagnostic equipment, in which I would like more investment. There must be a plan to put in place all of this infrastructure so that we can get bang for our buck and have the capacity in our public hospitals that we want.

I agree with all the Deputy's comments. We want to run our existing theatres, diagnostic suites and outpatient clinics for longer so that consultants and their patients can get more access to our current resources. As he correctly stated, this will require more theatre nurses, administrative support and technicians. We can get much more for patients out of our current capacity, which is why the new contract will gradually double the time available to them.

That said, we also need a great deal more new capacity. Yesterday was a good day in that regard. There was Government agreement on two new elective hospitals and five new surgical hubs, including one in the Deputy's constituency of Waterford, which will make a significant difference. This is in line with a fundamental increase in the permanent capacity of our public health service.