Hospital waiting lists have spiralled out of control. We have more than 900,000 people waiting for vital medical care as we speak. I want to focus on just one of the very alarming aspects of this crisis and that is the more than 100,000 children who today go without the treatment they need. I am talking about children in need of a disability diagnosis, an autism assessment or access to mental health services; I am talking about children who desperately need early intervention but yet face a two-year wait and cannot get access to therapies; and I am also talking about children with scoliosis, who lives their days and nights in agony, waiting for a life-changing procedure. There should not be one child or family left in such an awful situation, let alone thousands upon thousands.

Yesterday, we heard what the lack of capacity in our health service actually means for children. Speaking on radio, Dr. Gabrielle Colleran summed up just how dire things have become. She said: "I had another doctor write to me last week saying they have a child with neurological symptoms and the appointment they had been offered was for 2035." That is 14 years away, a wait so long that the child will no longer be a child when the appointment comes around. The human toll of all of this is devastating. I personally know of parents of children who miss school regularly because of chronic pain, children so traumatised by their wait that they are on anti-depressants, and children and parents who see no light at the end of the tunnel. At the root of this, of course, is decades of bad Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael policy - 40 years of pushing private interests, weakening public healthcare, slashing capacity in our hospitals and creating nightmarish working conditions for nurses and doctors. We see this failed agenda again in the problems that have arisen with the delivery of Sláintecare, in the Taoiseach's failure to fill on a permanent basis 720 vital consultant positions and in the fact that so many of our young nurses and midwives do not see their future here. The problem is that the Government is wedded to a two-tier system that has failed people time and again, and that is why we continue to have a system that does not work for everyone. It certainly is not working for those 100,000 children.

Teastaíonn athrú uainn. Tá Rialtas ag teastáil uainn a thógfaidh seirbhís sláinte a oibreoidh do gach duine. Tá gníomh práinneach ag teastáil chun dul i ngleic le líon ollmhór na bpáistí atá ar liostaí feithimh. This has to change. We need a Government that will build a health service that will work for everyone. Urgent action is needed to tackle the colossal number of children on waiting lists. There can be no plámásing or hiding behind alibis of complexity. The Taoiseach's job is to do right by these kids. There are things he could start today that would make a difference. I have two specific asks. Will he commit to filling those 720 consultant positions urgently and on a permanent basis? Will he target that investment to the areas that most affect children, such as orthopaedics, ear, nose and throat, ENT, medicine and neurology? Will he invest to increase dramatically diagnostic capacity to the level required to get children off these waiting lists and into care?

Ar dtús báire, tá athrú ar siúl. Tá sé ag teacht. Tá an tseirbhís sláinte ag éirí níos treise lá i ndiaidh lae. Tá 6,000 níos mó duine ag obair sa tseirbhís i mbliana ná mar a bhí ag an am céanna anuraidh. Is léir go bhfuil géarchéim ann. Tá a fhios ag cách go bhfuil géarchéim ann de bharr na paindéime, go bhfuil a lán dochar déanta do chúrsaí sláinte ag an gcoróinvíreas agus gur chuir an víreas a lán brú ar na cúrsaí sin. Is é sin an fáth go bhfuil na liostaí i bhfad níos faide anois ná mar a bhí siad roimh theacht an choróinvíris.

Change is happening and will continue to happen with regard to our health services. Fianna Fáil has not been in government for more than ten years. This Government, of which Fianna Fáil is a member, has dramatically increased health spending over the past 12 months. Notwithstanding the extraordinary pressure the pandemic has put on our health services and the fact that it has frustrated and impeded our attempts to get waiting lists down, bed capacity has increased, as have ICU capacity and diagnostic capacity. Up to €25 million in funding has been granted to improve GPs access to diagnostics, which has resulted in up to 70,000 additional scans taking place.

I take the Deputy's point regarding children. We do not want children to remain on any waiting list for too long. In previous eras, we had got waiting lists for children down to three months. It our objective to get waiting times for children right across the board, including those for mental health, disabilities, acute issues and the various specialties, reduced considerably. For example, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has allocated €4 million for the period, September and December 2021, to reduce primary care waiting lists for psychology services. This is a targeted approach that involves the utilisation of public and private capacity, locum professionals, Saturday clinics and so forth to get the waiting times for the thousands of children who had been waiting for access to primary care psychology prior to this initiative reduced significantly. Likewise, on the special needs front, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has moved very strongly and allocated substantial funding to get the waiting lists for childhood assessments reduced.

The Minister for Health is preparing an action plan for dealing with waiting lists more generally. He secured approximately €240 million this year but, because of Covid and the two lockdowns, we had reduced capacity to do the work on that waiting list initiative that we wanted to get done. The funding will be allocated again for 2022. The waiting list plan, which aims to tackle these large and unacceptable numbers, will be announced by the Minister shortly. Critically, it will set out the timelines. The Deputy should be under no illusion, however. Substantial change has occurred. There is no question but that targeting the significant waiting lists, which have also increased significantly because of the pandemic, will be a key priority over the coming weeks, now that we are emerging from the pandemic, and into the early part of 2022, to get those waiting lists and waiting times reduced for all involved.

Níl rudaí ag athrú. Tá an córas sláinte faoi bhrú agus tá 100,000 páiste ar liostaí feithimh. Is é seo an fhírinne. They are the facts. There are 100,000 children on these waiting lists. The Taoiseach speaks of the additional €1.2 billion that has been committed but one third of that money has not even been spent. I asked him specifically about those consultant posts that need to be filled on a permanent basis. I also asked him specifically about increasing diagnostic capacity. Saying "mar dhea" or that there is not a problem or that the Government has risen to the challenge simply does not tally with the facts. By the way, this is not a Covid overhang. The facts tell us that, in January 2020, long before we heard of Covid on our island, there were 824,000 people on waiting lists. This is a long-running problem and at the heart of it is capacity. It is about staffing, beds, theatre space and diagnostics. I challenge the Taoiseach again and ask him to give reassurance to those children and families that the resources will be invested and that, when the Government's plan is produced, it will not fall short again.

Getting children off waiting lists will not be a question of resources. Resources will be allocated to do that.

We will need the Deputy's support and that of the entire Oireachtas when it comes to public-sector-only consultant contracts.

It is interesting that 720 consultant vacancies have arisen in the last week. I do not think that is disconnected from the ongoing-----

They are waiting for years.

Some are waiting for years.

-----negotiations regarding public-sector-only contracts. There is no issue. We provided substantial funding last year to recruit and recruit. Some 6,000 more people work in the health service this July than last July, including 4,000 additional since January.

There were to be 15,000.

The point being there is no problem in resourcing this. I have some experience of recruitment and I think the HR side needs to improve dramatically. From the consultants' perspective, there is an issue on the table because it is a key part of Sláintecare.

Let us be clear that the Deputy's support will be required, rather than playing politics with it. There will be all sorts of smokescreens and diversions put up but there will be one fundamental issue to be dealt with, and that will be a contract that fully aligns with the Sláintecare principle and relates to appointing public-sector-only consultants.

I thank the Taoiseach. We are way over time.

That will be the key issue.

We are not problematic about this. This side of the House supports public medicine.

Regarding diagnostics, the money has been allocated for that and we will continue to improve that.