asked the Minister for Health the present position in relation to waiting lists for the following hospital treatments: (a) cataract operations, (b) hip replacements, (c) heart surgery and (d) child deafness; the total number of patients awaiting these treatments; and the average waiting period for these patients nationally.

44.

asked the Minister for Health if, in light of the additional expenditure approved to eliminate certain waiting lists, he will outline the current waiting lists for all orthopaedic operations, including hip replacements; the average waiting period in each health board area; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 44 together.

The latest information available to my Department on the number of persons awaiting admission as in-patients is as follows: (a) cataracts 3,374; (b) hip replacements 1,993; (c) heart surgery 675 and (d) child deafness 1,810. The total number of patients awaiting all types of orthopaedic operations is around 7,300. Information on the average waiting period is not collected since the length of time any individual patient waits for treatment differs according to medical priority.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Government have, in response to demands to reduce unacceptably long waiting times, provided an additional £15 million earlier this year. A substantial amount of this was directed specifically to help reduce waiting lists with priority given to ear, nose and throat, cataracts and hip replacement operations. Substantial funds were also allocated to provide for restoration of beds closed, to open additional beds and to avoid planned bed closures.

I am satisfied that this injection of funds has been effective in helping to reduce waiting lists in the areas targeted and in protecting services in general.

On a point of order, as the time for priority questions has now expired, I ask the Ceann Comhairle to proceed with ordinary questions and afford those Deputies who were excluded up to this from asking questions an opportunity to be heard.

The Chair is very conscious of the time aspect of this matter.

It started at one minute to——

The Chair is well aware of the time it started and the time it is due to finish. I am calling Deputy Yates for a brief supplementary.

May I ask——

Deputy McCartan, no. I am still in control in this House.

I do not seek to take that control from you.

He is a time waster.

I am not seeking to waste time. I am asking that the 15 minutes——

The Deputy has wasted precious time.

I am no seeking to——

I insist on my earlier instruction that Deputy Yates be given a brief supplementary.

Will you indicate to the House at what time you consider priority questions to have begun?

I seek to provide not more than the quarter of an hour.

We are over that time now.

We are, by reason of your interruption, Deputy. I decide these matters.

We also——

I am in contention with you as regards the precise time.

We too must be given some regard as having some intelligence. We can read the clock as well as you can.

Fair comment, but I go by that clock, Deputy, and it was some seconds to the time when I called Deputy Yates.

We have wasted three minutes.

Is the Minister aware that the waiting list is so long that people are going clinically blind due to the delay in cataract operations, people are waiting up to four years for hip replacement operations and up to three years for tonsillectomies? Will he now acknowledge that most of this £15 million he makes such a hype about in fact prevented summer ward closures and did nothing to reduce waiting lists?

I cannot accept what the Deputy is saying. For example, in Temple Street Children's Hospital provision was made for special review clinics and outpatient departments for ear, nose and throat cases. The number of appointments sent out to date — provided out of the special funding — was 171. The number of patients who phoned to say they would not be coming was three, the number who did not attend was 58, the number who attended 110, and of that 110, 19 were taken off the list as they did not need treatment. The inpatient list in Temple Street has been reduced by 200 since August as a result of the intervention of August 1989. That is the general pattern.

One swallow does not make a summer.

If the Deputy likes we will go on to the Midland Health Board.

The time for priority questions is exhausted now.

The Midland Health Baord have the same pattern as Temple Street. A sum of £200,000 was provided to the Eye and Ear Hospital for 250 extra cataract operations in the current year.

Let us now come to deal with ordinary questions. Question No. 10.