Today marks the first anniversary of the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, assuming responsibility for leading the Government. Like previous Governments before it, its record on health has been absolutely abysmal. Nowhere is this more evident than in the context of hospital waiting lists. Since the Government came to office, hardly a month passes without the number of people on waiting lists increasing. The figures have risen every month since last autumn, with the exception of a small reduction in February. The figures released by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, this morning are totally shocking. The figures for May are up 6,200 on the previous month and the overall number has increased by more than 20,000 patients for the year. This brings the total number of people on waiting lists in the State to more than 707,000. That is the highest number ever recorded in the history of the State.

When he came to office, the Taoiseach said he would be taking a special interest in the issue of health. That special interest has amounted to overseeing an increase in hospital waiting lists to record highs. Such failure has not been confined to the issue of hospital waiting lists alone. Since Deputy Varadkar became Taoiseach, more than 106,000 patients have spent time on hospital trolleys. He has presided over a recruitment and retention crisis in our hospitals and, as we heard again this week, there is chronic underinvestment in our mental health services. There has been a significant increase in those over the age of 75 who have spent 24 hours or more in accident and emergency wards. If this is the Taoiseach taking a special interest in health, I am loath to think what it would be like if he did not take that interest.

I do not want to absolve the Government's partner, Fianna Fáil, from its role in all of this. When it cobbled together its deal to put the Government in office in 2016, Fianna Fáil stated that it would ensure that a plan was put in place to tackle waiting lists. Look at the situation now. We have record levels, with 707,000 patients on hospital waiting lists.

The problem can be addressed but it is a matter of priorities and choice, and of making the right choices. It can be done by removing private health care from public hospitals and ensuring proper oversight of private practice limits, by stopping State funds going into private interests through the NTPF, and by ensuring there is adequate public investment in funding of public hospitals so they do not have to raise their own funds. All of this can help to bring down waiting lists.

It is long past time that the Government got serious about tackling this issue. It might be late in the day and one year on, but it is time for the Taoiseach to take a special interest in health and fulfil the commitment he made to the people and make meaningful changes that will result in these waiting lists coming down.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The investment in health is now at unprecedented levels. It is encouraging that 22,000 operations are conducted each week in our hospitals. That is a very high number. Admittedly, there is a waiting list of 79,000. When we think of the 22,000 being treated every week, however, it shows significant progress is being made. The number of 22,000 per week has increased, and it has risen in each of the past five years. We are progressively making progress on tackling the waiting lists.

The outpatient waiting list is down. The number of patients waiting longer than nine months, which is the target for an inpatient or day-case procedure, is now down 5,800, so it is significantly down in comparison to the figures previously provided. We are making significant progress. The number of outpatients treated in our hospitals each week is 64,200. Again, this is a figure that is increasing all the time. There is a waiting list of more than 500,000 outpatients but the Minister is introducing a new outpatient action plan to address this.

The Deputy is aware the NTPF has been reinstated. It has already very successfully treated 7,500 people so far this year, taking them directly off waiting lists. The Minister will now address the outpatient waiting lists, which do present a challenge. It is well known that there is duplication on those lists. We need to properly verify the lists. A strategy is being put in place - it is close to being finalised by the Minister - to address the specific issue of outpatient waiting.

We have to bear in mind that this is also in the context of significant improvements being made in the broader health service. There is a strategy to increase investment in primary care centres and we see that throughout the country almost 100 additional primary care centres have been put in place. For the first time in 25 years we have new investment in hospital infrastructure. It is hard to believe no new hospital capacity was put in place in our health system for almost 25 years but, as the Deputy knows, the Minister is investing in a new children's hospital, a new maternity hospital and a new forensic hospital. He has indicated in his ten-year plan that significant investments are coming in order to address needs, with almost 3,000 additional beds - some of them exclusively in hospitals dealing solely with elective procedures - being provided. This will be a significant addition to the investment and the range of resources to address needs.

I do not know what planet the Minister lives on, coming in here and making a statement to the effect that the Government is making progress on waiting lists despite the evidence. That evidence is not just coming from me or the Sinn Féin benches, it is contained in the report published this morning, which states very clearly that the numbers on waiting lists in the State have increased by 6,200 in the past month. Since the Taoiseach assumed office, the overall number has increased by 20,000. The report is very clear that we have the largest number of patients on waiting lists ever recorded in the history of the State.

The Government tries to slice and dice the figures and present them in a way that makes it seem that great improvements are being made. The only thing that can be relied on is the NTPF, but we know that is a privatisation of the system and it will never work. What we need is investment in the public service. What we need is proper value for money. What the Government is doing with regard to the NTPF is siphoning off taxpayers' money into private health care that provides for routine and simple procedures which should be carried out in public hospitals. These are procedures that cost three times more than if they were carried out in a public hospital, but there is an ideological blind spot whereby the Government believes that underinvestment in public services and dishing it out to private services is okay.

I thank the Deputy. The time is up.

I will finish on this point. Sarah Burke of the centre for health policy and management in Trinity College nailed it when she said that over a decade of pouring hundreds of millions into the NTPF is proof it does not address the underlying causes and the long waits for public patients. Will the Government accept this reality and bring forward a proper programme which, at its core, has investment in the public service so we can end the shameful episode of having 707,000 patients on hospital waiting lists?

To address the issue of waiting lists, the Deputy is right that 162,000 people joined the outpatient waiting list in the past three months, but in that time 832,000 outpatients were treated in our hospitals. We are delivering care. Of course, any system will have people who are joining the waiting list as it is not an immediate service, but most of these patients are there less than six months and 75% are treated within 12 months. There is a system and a pipeline for dealing with them.

When it comes to investment, the Deputy will have read the recent investment plan. From memory, €10 billion is being invested in our health services and, as I said, this is the first series of investments in almost 25 years in expanding the capacity, not just of our hospital system but also of our primary care system, to address the needs of a growing population and an ageing population. We freewheeled through the so-called Celtic tiger years and did not make those investments, but they are now being made because the hard earned recovery we have achieved will be used in a prudent way and we will invest it in elective-only beds and additional capacity throughout the country.

That is the way we invest. We will support the Sláintecare policy, which I understood had broad party support across the House, as a consistent strategy to address health in the long term.