There is now a chronic situation in the Department of Health and the HSE with many families waiting for crucial appointments and procedures. We now have a situation going on for ten weeks where the Fórsa trade union is on a kind of work-to-rule. We cannot get answers to parliamentary questions or to our representations so that the public out there are being left bewildered. We cannot get answers. This is not good enough. Will somebody in the HSE or in the Department of Health please resolve this issue? It was bad enough before but it is appalling now that we cannot get any answers or replies with a ten-week delay. This is ongoing with no sign of it improving. It is not acceptable in a modern day democracy that we are being shut out of doing our work on behalf of our constituents and it is time that the Government sorted it out.

I agree with the Deputy that it is absolutely imperative that we as public representatives have the ability to be able to represent the constituents who come to us. I am happy to come back to the Deputy and to ask the Minister for Health to respond to this particular query.