I wish to return to the point made about the commitment in the programme for Government to reduce waiting times for hospital outpatient appointments. I note what the Taoiseach said about slipping and going in the wrong direction. Yesterday, I was contacted by a constituent living in the town of Wexford who had been referred to a neurologist in St. Vincent's University Hospital. He got a letter from the hospital on 14 February - he was very happy even to be given an appointment - stating an appointment had been arranged for him at the waiting list triage clinic in the neurology department on the ground floor of St. Vincent's Hospital at 9 a.m. on 1 January 2024. It almost takes the proverbial when the next line states:

Please present this letter to the receptionist on arrival ... If you are unable to [make] this appointment, it is important that you phone [to] cancel on the number above. We may be able to give your appointment to another patient.

The letter then states the hospital may be able to give the appointment to another patient. That is six years from now. What is happening with outpatient appointments? Is this in any way acceptable?

I imagine or suspect that is an error. I worked in hospital medicine and community medicine for seven years and I often saw people get appointments for six months or four months later but I never saw anyone get an appointment for six years' time. If the Deputy would like to pass it on to me or the Minister, Deputy Harris, we will have it examined. As I said, there are different types of waiting lists. The waiting list for people awaiting procedures and operations for hips, eyes, knees and cataracts has fallen from a peak of 86,000 to 80,000 and we expect it will continue to fall. We know what needs to be done now, which is to apply this to outpatients.