Like the Deputy, I want to make sure that every child waiting for an operation gets it as quickly as possible. We need to acknowledge the extraordinary work that is going on across multiple sites by our healthcare workers. The main target was to increase radically the number of children who are getting this urgent surgery that they need. As the Deputy will have heard Dr. Green say on RTÉ recently and others, they are not only meeting all of those targets, they are exceeding them. One thing has happened that they we…

We are acutely aware of the issue. The Government’s plan is to end winter trolley crises permanently. The way we are doing that is adding more permanent capacity to our public health service than ever before, such as adding many thousands of healthcare professionals and by the end of the year more than 1,000 acute beds. We are ahead of the 2018 capacity review on hospital beds, critical care and many other areas. However, in the context of Covid, Ireland, Australia, the UK and many countries across the world are su…

I am more than happy to agree with the Deputy and patient advocates that the current waiting lists in this country are not acceptable. They are not acceptable for trans people and in many other areas of healthcare provision. I met recently with some of the healthcare providers. There are various proposals being looked at to increase capacity and, critically, as the Deputy rightly advocates for, to make sure people have timely access to the best possible care.

I thank the Deputy. I was in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, last week and met with the senior clinical team, including the emergency department nursing and consultant staff. I fully agree the resources that are needed have not been in place for a long time. The Deputy will be aware I have sanctioned a doubling of the number of emergency medicine consultants in Drogheda. We have launched phase 2 of the safe staffing framework, which will increase the number of emergency nursing and healthcare assistant role…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and for passing on the case. I will ask the HSE for a detailed note on it. A significant additional number of healthcare professionals need to be hired in disability services. Sanction is in place for several hundred posts that are currently unfilled. The HSE has found it harder to fill the children's healthcare roles in disability services and mental health services than the adult roles. I am engaged directly with the HSE on this matter. It is looking at different service …

Significant investment is going into Sligo University Hospital and the budget has increased by about €30 million up to €160 million in the past few years. There has been quite an additional increase in staffing as well. There are new beds. Deputy Harkin will be aware that I pushed very hard for four new ICU beds to be opened up. The HSE is now moving to staff them directly. In direct response to Deputy Harkin's question on whether we will use private capacity to get people the care they need, we will do so and we a…

I also express my sympathies to the families involved, who have experienced a heart-breaking tragedy. I want to be very clear about this. This extremely distressing situation should not have happened. To answer the Deputy’s question on the human tissue Bill directly, there is very extensive work going on now between the Office of the Attorney General, my Department and the Department of Justice to bring this into the House as quickly as possible for all of the reasons we understand.

I thank the Deputy for raising this case. It is a case I am familiar with and it is a case on which I have engaged with both the Department and the HSE. As the Deputy will be aware, we allocated €19 million this year specifically to deal with paediatric orthopaedics, including very complex cases, scoliosis and spina bifida. I met with Children's Health Ireland, CHI, and the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh just yesterday. They have reported nearly a 50% reduction in the number of children waiting more than a y…

We will have the six menopause clinics up and running this year. I opened the one in the Rotunda just last week. The feedback we are getting from patients and practitioners is incredibly positive. Specifically on the specialist clinics, those services are free for everybody. Whether someone has a medical card, a GP card or nothing, the specialist clinic is free. Where there is a charge is for women who are engaging with their GP. Some of the GPs are charging more because they say it is an extended consultation. It …

I look forward to the day when the Deputy stands up and says, "We asked for a second cath lab and we got it".

And "we asked for a lot more staff and we got them".

And "we asked for more beds in the hospital and we got them". And "we asked for more services in the region and we got them". The Deputy is aware-----

Sorry, I did not shout over you. Please at least have the courtesy to allow me to answer your question.

I think we are-----

I do not think the Deputy is interested.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Like him, I recognise that there are challenges facing general practice in terms of capacity, including out-of-hours services, and importantly therefore for the people who matter in all of this, which is their patients and the communities they serve. Historically, out-of-hours services have been something that GPs have provided. We know that more and more GPs are now opting out of that provision and are looking to the State to provide it, for reasonable reasons relating to …

I am very open to the idea of the HSE directly employing GPs. It is something we should pursue. We know there are some areas in particular that are affected, such as rural areas. For example, I am involved at the moment with an issue in certain parts of Galway concerning out-of-hours GP coverage. There is a role for directly employed GPs in some urban areas, in particular areas that are less well-off where the GPs are struggling. There has been a significant expansion of training places. In 2010, there were 109 tra…

We are in agreement that we need more GPs. It is relevant that the number of places for GPs has more than doubled in the past decade and we are continuing to increase it. That is going to go some of the way. In part, that will provide more GPs and more cover, which is needed and, in part, it will allow for a different work-life balance for GPs. What younger GPs say to me is that in the past, in their parents' generation, GPs sometimes worked 60, 70 and 80 hours a week. They covered on-call and if somebody got sick …

Before I respond, I welcome to the Gallery the girls and boys from sixth class in the Harold School. When I made that comment, I was not referring to Sinn Féin, although I stand to be corrected. We all focus on the total number of people on waiting lists but my point, which I imagine the Deputy will agree with, was that the number that matters is the number of people who have been waiting for too long. The example I gave was that if 2 million people had been referred for care but were waiting a matter of days, that…

I agree in terms of capacity. The hospitals, community care and the HSE all said we need record levels of investment and we need to add record levels of capacity, which is exactly what has happened. By the end of this year, compared to the start of Covid-19, there will be more than 1,000 extra hospital beds in the system. We will have funded approximately an extra 250,000 diagnostic scans and added more than 15,000 or 16,000 extra workers. We will have built an entire system of community care that did not exist 18 …