The CervicalCheck scandal shows the importance of vigilance in our efforts to improve the health of our country. Essential tasks for our health service are screening and disease prevention. Ensuring that we prevent unnecessary blindness is one example. Approximately 75% of sight loss is avoidable. At the end of last August, the inpatient waiting list for eye procedures was almost 12,500 people, the largest of any medical specialty. If sight-saving treatment is not delivered, it puts people at risk of irreversible damage to their vision.

Cataract surgery can restore impaired vision, but a survey by the Association of Optometrists Ireland published today shows incredibly long waiting lists across the country. The average waiting period is 28 months, with up to a shocking five-year wait in some parts of the country, such as west Cork. The survey also expressed concern about inconsistency and gaps in eye care services for children, in respect of whom there is an average waiting time of 15 months.

The opening last year of a new eye and ear unit in the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital doubled the number of procedures it could perform. The Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, stated then that this would over time eliminate waiting lists in the Ireland East Hospital Group. That is welcome, but a nationwide programme is required. When will a plan for the rest of the country to deal with these unconscionable waits be rolled out? The lowest waiting time is in Sligo-Leitrim due to its award winning scheme. There have been repeated calls for the Sligo post-cataract scheme to be rolled out nationwide. Up to 20,000 procedures are carried out each year in Ireland, so this innovative scheme could radically reduce the number of appointments needed by people suffering blindness because of cataracts. The scheme is referenced in the programme for Government, the benefits are known by everyone and there have been repeated requests for it to be rolled out. As such, what will be done to increase the overall capacity for cataract operations in Ireland? We have an ageing population and we must be equipped to meet future health needs as well as the current health needs of people whose quality of life is immeasurably improved by having better vision after cataract operations. When will the proven Sligo model, which has had a positive impact on waiting lists in that area, be rolled out to every part of the country as promised in the programme for Government?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which the Department and Minister have developed a plan to address. I checked the figures this morning. Just over 11,000 people are on the inpatient waiting list for cataract or ophthalmological surgery, with 75% of those seen within nine months. The Minister's plan is to eliminate waiting times of over nine months. To do that, he will use the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, which has been assigned €55 million this year. I understand that 5,000 cataract cases will be included in its programme for this year. That is significantly more than the number of people waiting longer than nine months. This matter is a high priority for the Government.

Large numbers of people are on the outpatient waiting list, but a target has been set for 80% of patients to receive an appointment within a 52-week period. There will be a joint initiative by the NTPF and the HSE to address that issue.

I am not aware of the strengths of the Sligo model, but I will ask the Minister to take heed of it as he rolls out this plan. If there are procedures that can accelerate access to care in a field where, as the Deputy rightly stated, any time lost is critical, the Minister will consider them. Significant emphasis is placed on this issue in the Government's plan and the Minister is confident that the targets will be delivered on this year-----

The Government let a lot of people go blind.

-----and that no one will be waiting for longer than nine months by the end of the year.

The bottom line is that people have been waiting for inexcusably long periods. One patient described the return of vision after a cataract treatment as the difference between day and night. It is not an expensive or complicated procedure and a sophisticated country like ours should be able to provide access to such an operation within a couple of months at the longest.

The Minister's statement that the future objective is to have 80% of patients dealt with within 13 months, which means that 20%, or one in five, would have to wait for much longer, is not acceptable. We have no details about how that target will be met, where specifically the new procedures will be carried out and where the new surgeons will be appointed. Will the Minister give specific focus to the questions I have asked and detail how the objectives that he set out are to be achieved?

The Deputy is confusing-----

What did the Labour Party ever do for them? Nothing.

It let them go blind.

The Labour Party let them go blind when it was in government.

What was it doing for those five years?

Deputies, please.

The Government let a lot of people go blind.

To clarify the question on procedures for Deputy Howlin, that is, where a person has been seen and a procedure identified as being necessary, the target is for there to be no cases waiting for over nine months by the end of the year. At the moment, a little over 2,000 cases have been waiting for longer than nine months. The NTPF will make provision for 5,000 operations, which is more than double that number. The Minister and the NTPF-----

Where will they be performed?

-----are confident that, between the existing flow of work and the additional procedures that will be contracted privately, the target will be met. I will ask the Minister to provide the Deputy with the additional detail he requires in terms of locations and service providers.