Brian O'Connell

Well, it had been highlighted that diagnostic waiting lists were increasing.

So some patients are waiting too long, basically, to get MRIs or CTs.

So I just simply wanted to find out how many patients are waiting and how long are they waiting?

So simple enough request, you would think.

I suppose the idea is we don't have the data available.

It's very hard to address this issue.

Last year, we had learned 306,000 patients were waiting on diagnostic scans.

We could see in data which was given in a reply to a parliamentary question that the number of people waiting last year over 18 months to get their scan had increased.

So it was about 44,000 people waiting and there were almost 10,000 children waiting to get a diagnostic scan as well.

Well, information given to this programme shows some of the most modern high-tech diagnostic machines in the world have been on site at the National Children's Hospital since 2024.

So these include MRI machines.

Two of them were put there in June 2024.

one of them in October 2024.

Also on the site is something called a Somaton 4 CT scanner.

Now, this is one of the most advanced CT scanners in the world.

It was put there in June 2024, so almost two years ago.

Now, one person I spoke to at Insight said it's likely to be in the region of about €10 million worth of diagnostic equipment.

sitting on the site of the new children's hospital.

It's obviously not being used and this equipment is so advanced that some of it is not even available anywhere else in the health service at the moment.

We have about 120 MRI and CT scanners in total.