Health Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-30
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Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City

I thank Deputies McGrath and Murphy for the opportunity to address the House today on an issue that I know has had an ongoing impact on many patients in south Tipperary. I am taking this Topical Issue on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, who I know is committed to reducing waiting lists for both adults and children across all our services be they provided in acute hospitals or in the community.
It is important to highlight that the HSE provides free optical services to preschool and national school children referred through child health and school health examinations as having sight problems. These services continue until a child reaches 16 years of age. The community ophthalmic services scheme allows medical card holders and their dependent children aged 12 and over to access eye care from contracted ophthalmologists, optometrists or dispensing opticians.
In relation to the Deputies’ specific question, the HSE has confirmed that the community ophthalmic physician post in south Tipperary became vacant in October 2024 following a retirement which they both referenced. In 2025, this post was regraded to a consultant in medical ophthalmology to align with the HSE’s national clinical programme for ophthalmology. This clinical programme for ophthalmology developed a model of care to realign eye care services from hospital settings to the community. The HSE has been developing multidisciplinary integrated eye care teams in accordance with this model of care. These teams facilitate assessment, diagnoses and treatment, enabling most patients to be seen in their own locality. The service provided by the previous community ophthalmic physician for south Tipperary operated across HSE south east community services with clinics in both Clonmel Community Care Centre and Cashel Medical Centre.
Since the vacancy arose in October 2024, the HSE has maintained a sustained focus on securing a permanent consultant ophthalmologist for south Tipperary. The post has been advertised on three occasions to date and recruitment efforts remain active. The position is currently being advertised nationally and internationally including through specialist Irish and UK ophthalmology publications. The HSE continues to pursue all available recruitment opportunities to attract suitably qualified candidates and restore permanent service provision to the south east.
Recognising the importance of maintaining access to care while permanent recruitment efforts continue, the HSE south east community service has worked closely with University Hospital Waterford to put interim service arrangements in place. All parents of children were notified of the temporary pause to the service and were offered appointments in University Hospital Waterford. The HSE has also explored other options to ensure service continuity, such as the use of external providers to increase capacity, overtime of existing HSE staff and the possibility of weekend blitz clinics at University Hospital Waterford. Funding has been secured to support delivery of the clinic and engagement with additional staff from another integrated health area is under way to support delivery of the clinic. The HSE has also sought to progress the multidisciplinary model of care, seeking to recruit optometrists and orthoptists to support the delivery of ophthalmology services. Furthermore, the HSE has undertaken a comprehensive validation exercise of all ophthalmology waiting lists in south Tipperary to support the prioritisation of patients and the planning of additional clinical activity.
The HSE remains fully committed to restoring a sustainable ophthalmology service in south Tipperary and will continue to pursue all available recruitment and service delivery options to achieve this objective as a matter of priority.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-30