The issue of hospital waiting lists was one of many to be resolved by the implementation of Sláintecare. The implementation of Sláintecare was supposed to be in the Taoiseach's office. It is not in that office but it ought to be. I urge the Taoiseach to take responsibility for its implementation.

My question is more specific. One reason, although far from the only reason, for hospital waiting lists in the mid west in particular is the use of theatres at University Hospital Limerick, UHL. The rate at which the theatre was used was far below the target rate, which is approximately 85% internationally. It was at approximately 75% at the time of the most recent election. That obviously worsened because of Covid, which is not the fault of anybody. What is the rate of use now? Unless we can get theatre usage up to the optimal levels, waiting lists will not be addressed. That is true for UHL but there is also the issue of theatre usage in Ennis and Nenagh hospitals. I do not expect the Taoiseach to have those figures off the top of his head. If he does not have the figures now, I ask that he come back to me with them.

On the bigger issue, will he take responsibility for Sláintecare?

It is a very fair point the Deputy has raised in terms of theatre usage. That is why the development of elective-only facilities is crucial, so that we have theatres that are not impacted by trauma medical admissions and so on, which happens in the major tertiary hospitals. That is key. Proposals for three elective facilities will come to Cabinet in a short while in respect of Galway, Dublin and Cork in terms of new elective facilities.

However, even within the existing suite of hospitals, we should ring-fence elective activity so that we can get optimal use of theatre space for clinicians so that they can get these waiting lists down. We have approximately 75,700 on the inpatient day case list at the moment, 652,000 on the outpatient list and 33,000 on the diagnostics list. Covid has had a huge impact on that.