EU Directives Dail Éireann — 2026-07-09 ============================================================ Shane Moynihan (FF), Dublin Mid-West I thank the Minister for that very comprehensive answer. I welcome her support and proactiveness in getting the HSE to commit to that timeline. I have a few follow-up questions. This is around confidence-building. It is a very useful directive and gives us additional capacity in getting people the treatment they need. From my understanding of how the scheme operates, it centres on a small number of providers and hospitals because of the specific procedures that are there. As the Minister said, waiting six months for reimbursement is onerous, especially if it is an older relative or someone who has been waiting for a long time. Could the Minister say a bit more about whether any consideration can be given to a situation where a family, not of substantial means, has had to take a loan to pay for the overall cost of the treatment and because they have not been able to repay that loan, or because the reimbursement has been delayed, this has led to interest being accrued on the credit facility they took? Is the HSE considering providing alleviation for families who find themselves in those circumstances through, as the Minister said, no fault of their own? It is unacceptable they should have to wait that duration of time to receive the reimbursement due to them and they then have to pay an additional interest or credit charge on top of that. There is a question of fairness. I fully appreciate and am grateful to the Minister for driving the HSE to get back to a 30-day target by the end of 2026. How confident is the Minister that it will do that? Is it allocating additional staff? What exactly does additional resource look like? Will the HSE report to the Minister with an interim progress report before the end of the year to see how this is tracking? Has the HSE made any substantial progress in addressing that target in the meantime? It is a good directive and scheme. From a political point of view, we are very supportive of this but it is also about making sure patients relying on it get the reimbursement they are due. As I am sure the Minister will agree, we do not want to cause more hardship to or place onerous pressure on people who may have been through a procedure or have had a loved one go through a procedure. Will the Minister share her thoughts on the staffing, her confidence that the HSE will reach the target and the refund of interest on credit facilities? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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