CATARACTS ARE ONE of the most common and treatable causes of sight loss in Ireland – yet thousands of people wait months or even years for the short, straightforward procedure that could restore their vision.

According to the most recent available data, almost 7,500 patients are waiting for cataract surgery, with many more waiting to be assessed. Behind every number is someone struggling to drive, to read or to live independently.

This is not a funding problem. Ireland’s health budget has never been higher, with over €27 billion in Budget 2026. It is, instead, a delivery problem. The reality is the system is constrained by limited public hospital capacity, workforce shortages and outdated models of care that keep high-volume, low-complexity procedures trapped in acute hospital theatres.

Cataract surgery is ideally suited to community-based settings – modern, efficient, high-throughput clinics that can deliver thousands of procedures safely and at lower cost. That shift is entirely consistent with the vision set out in Sláintecare: care that is accessible, affordable and delivered as close to home as possible.

At present, outsourcing is too often a reactive tool, deployed in bursts to clear backlogs.

This stop-start approach creates peaks and troughs in patient access, with no lasting improvement in system capacity. A more sustainable approach would use........

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