At the end of September 2022, there were 16,158 children waiting for initial contact from disability services, with 8,870 of them waiting for over 12 months for that initial contact. Last week, a child presented to Tipperary University Hospital with mental health difficulties.

That child waited for a paediatric psychiatrist for 50 hours in the paediatric ward. That is shocking. All the while, we have the children's hospital. Cá bhfuil sé? We are coming up to the holy season of Christmas when children will celebrate Santa. Children are waiting for supports and languishing in hospital beds. There is the never-ending runaway train of the cost of the children's hospital with money going into a dark, black hole. Most people in this Chamber voted for that site. It is the totally wrong site. It is not accessible and it will never be. One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It is shameful. We might have photo opportunities with the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the Minister, Deputy Martin, out there. That is little good to the sick children who are waiting.

I thank the Deputy very much for raising that issue. He is quite right. There are more than 17,000 children waiting for their initial appointment. He is also correct that in the past 12 months, we have reconfigured 91 teams all over the country to ensure that we now know how many children are on waiting lists and what the timeframe is. The Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, already spoke about what has been put in place. There is now a strategy in place to address it in order that we will get every child who has been waiting more than 12 months looked after as priority starting in January.