Ahead of a Dáil debate on a Sinn Fein private members motion on waiting lists in the health service, People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny will say that Ireland needs urgent and substantial funding to resolve the waiting list crisis, which sees over 900,000 people on waiting list in this country, according to the Irish Hospital Consultants Association.
Deputy Kenny will say: “People Before Profit will be supporting this motion tonight. The situation around waiting lists in this country is nothing short of scandalous. We have a situation where over 900,000 people are on a waiting list of one form or another. Of these, 290,000 are people waiting longer than a year to be assessed and treated by a hospital consultant and 652,344 patients waiting to see a specialist. This is an intolerable situation, one which has been presided over for decades by successive governments.
“The present moment should be used to integrate and reorganise healthcare into a single-tier public system that is equipped to provide care to people based on clinical necessity, free at the point of use, and funded by general taxation.”
