Hospital Waiting Lists
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-09
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

I thought there was some incredible spin, and some sections of the media absolutely fell for it, suggesting that this report proves there is no evidence of inequity in access. The Minister has echoed that. That is the first finding, but the full sentence states, "No evidence of inequity ... was identified; however, this conclusion is constrained by significant limitations in data availability, classification, and sample size." It is essentially exploiting perhaps deliberately poor record keeping, to claim that preferential access cannot be proved, but it does not change the fact that preferential access was found in the report. It is there in black and white on page 109 in the context of urology. Urology consultant 2 had 20 public patients with an average wait time of 12.4 months and ten private patients with an average wait time of 1.84 months. The other consultants are not as bad but there is a discrepancy between private and public. The same applies when you go into orthopaedics. Consultant 6 has 12 public patients with an average waiting time of 1.7 months and three private patients with average waiting times of zero. There are other examples.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-09