I welcome the budget allocation for the Department of Health. As announced yesterday, there is some €22 billion, including €4 billion provided as pandemic supports, which was exceptional funding which has been maintained for next year's budget too. There are 900,000 people on waiting lists. Some are there because of delays caused by Covid and by the cyberattack. Prior to that, there was an excessive waiting list. We need to treat that waiting list with the same energy and enthusiasm as we have treated the Covid pandemic, with funding and utilising the investment that we have made in facilities, equipment and the expertise of our consultants, theatre staff and nurses. There is a lot of talk about a four-day week. We need to go the opposite direction to tackle this waiting list, by going to a six or seven-day week. Nobody can work 24-7 but we need to harness the expertise and ability of consultants, theatre staff and nurses to tackle this list. I hope and believe that the allocation in yesterday's budget will go some way to doing that, including using the National Treatment Purchase Fund as necessary. During the initial stages of the pandemic and again in January of this year, we had agreements with private hospitals to ensure that capacity was being used, if necessary, for Covid surges. We need to harness that energy again.

I also call for a debate on Sláintecare. Sláintecare has been a cross-party initiative. We have seen some high-profile resignations recently. It is important to debate these issues with the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, to address the future of Sláintecare and ensure that it continues to progress. There are some outstanding issues. There have been many achievements but there is also much confusion. There was to be a memorandum for Cabinet about elective hospitals last week, which was deferred, which related to the debate around day beds versus inpatient beds.

It is important that we have a fuller debate on this very important issue. There is huge demand in Galway for additional inpatient beds. We built a 75-bed ward, which was officially opened back in 2017 or 2018. It came into its own during the Covid period because it had so many en-suite, single occupancy rooms, which were excellent in terms of prevention of cross-infection and all of that. However, there is a need for inpatient beds. The Saolta Hospital Group has demanded this in response to the plan put forward by the Sláintecare team, which talks about day-only facilities. We have been led to believe that, for example, these elective facilities would allow for hip and knee operations. Hip and knee operations cannot be done in facilities where there are only day-care beds. We do not want American-style healthcare. We want to ensure that people are treated and have their recovery time over a period of three or four days, or however long it takes. We need to have this fuller debate in regard to Sláintecare, in particular on the issue of inpatient versus day beds.

I welcome the Deputy Leader to the House. I have no difficulty in supporting the Order of Business. It is a good Order of Business and I particularly single out the issue of the Private Members’ slot today. I note all of the signatures on it and I look forward to engaging with it. It is a very important piece of work in regard to the legacy issue. I myself travelled to Belfast, as did other Oireachtas Members. I look forward to sharing a different perspective on some of those issues later on.

Senator Kyne is right about the validation of waiting lists. More than 900,000 people are waiting on the lists. I undertook with the Leader last week that I would bring this up on a monthly basis. She prompted me and suggested to me on the floor of the House that I would do it more often, so I did. I welcome that the Minister for Health will be making a statement later today on the funding and how he wishes to address these ongoing lists, which are shocking. They are an indictment of the health service. It is an outrage that people are waiting with tumours, looking for diagnostics, anxious and concerned.

I made contact with the National Treatment Purchase Fund again, as I undertook to do, and I want to share with the House a few issues. It just so happens that Senator Kyne spoke first and I did not realise he was going to speak on this issue. I will circulate a breakdown of the lists later on. The latest list for Galway University Hospital has 54,757 people, there are 31,325 on the list in Cork University Hospital and St. Vincent's University Hospital has 25,000 people on the waiting list, and these are outpatients only. Letterkenny Hospital has 18,772 waiting on the list and Beaumont Hospital has 24,095 outpatients on the list. It is shocking, it is appalling and it is a disgrace that this has gone on for so long. I was particularly concerned about the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, with which I made contact only to be told there are 14,355 people looking for ophthalmic interventions. That is more than regional. That is a national speciality, so they are coming from all the regions and they cannot be broken down.

The list goes on and on. I decided I would share those figures with the House today. We have a serious concern and we need a debate on the waiting lists. To be fair to the Minister, who I support, I think he has a very hard and difficult job to do, but we need to see how we are going to address these lists. In this debate with the Minister, I want to hear who is going to validate the lists. There is a lot of confusion about double listing, double counting and people not turning up. This has to be addressed. They are genuine concerns. We need a debate urgently on how the Minister is specifically going to tackle these waiting lists and what is the role and function of the National Treatment Purchase Fund, separate from the Department, to administer and validate these lists. That is important.