Nearly 1 million hospital appointments have been cancelled since 2022 under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and the crisis deepens by the year. This is according to new HSE figures released to Teachta David Cullinane. This is a damning indictment of the Government's failed health policies. Hospitals are understaffed, overcrowded and overstretched because the Government has built in recruitment restrictions that strangle the system. The Government promised 3,000 new beds in 2024. The funding has not materialised. The Government promised four new elective hospitals by 2027. They are stalled and will not reach planning until 2031. It is failure on every front. Behind every cancelled appointment is a person left waiting, worrying and suffering because the Government refuses to act. It is time to get real. Where is the plan to deliver the staff, the beds, and the investment needed to fix this broken system?

The Deputy is simply ignoring the record level of investment in our health service, which is €27.4 billion in funding in 2026. If she compares 2020 to July 2025, there are over 29,000 more staff, which is a 28% increase in staffing across our health system. There are over 10,000 more nurses and midwives, 5,000 health and social care professionals, 1,400 consultants and over 2,000 doctors and dentists, all of whom are making a really positive contribution with changed demographics, increased demand and pressure across our health system.

Even with that occurring, we have had a 12% reduction in patients on waiting lists exceeding 12 months and a reduction in the average waiting time from 7.2 months to 6.5 months, and that is against a backdrop of a 9% increase in outpatients and a 5% increase in inpatient and day case attendances.

I regret whenever there are cancelled appointments for anyone across our hospital system but we are staffing and resourcing our public health in an unprecedented way-----

Thank you, Minister. I call Deputy Bacik.

-----to respond back to the pressure and the changing demographics we are seeing.