The number of people waiting a long time for hospital treatment has fallen in almost all specialities, the latest waiting list figures show.
Despite this improvement, however, 10,160 adults have waited a year or more for treatment, while 2,002 children have waited six months or more.
While commentators often focus on the total number of people waiting - 26,659 at the end of June - what matters to patients is not how many other people are on the list but how long it will take to get treatment.
In one speciality there has been a dramatic improvement: the number of people waiting a year or more for cardiac surgery fell from 587 last year to 190 this year.
There have also been substantial falls in the numbers waiting a year or more for ENT (ear, nose and throat) treatment (down to 2,163 from 3,105) and ophthalmology (down to 784 from 1,256).
These falls have been offset to some extent by a rise in the numbers waiting for general surgery, up from 916 last year to 1,103 this year.
For children, six months or more is the longest waiting period measured in the list issued by the Minister for Health. Here, the biggest falls have been in cardiac surgery (down from 66 children waiting six months or more last year to 10 children this year) and ENT (down to 1,153 from 1,538).
As with adults, the number of children waiting for general surgery has gone up. At the end of June, 200 children had been waiting for surgery for six months or more, compared with 129 in June of last year.
Overall, the number of adults and children waiting a long time for treatment has fallen by 20 per cent in the year since June 2000.
The figures suggest that steady progress is being made, but the time it takes to get to the end of the waiting list is still too long. Just over half the adults on the waiting list have been there for a year or more.
For children, the situation is worse. In June more than twice as many (2,002) had been on the waiting list for six months or more as had been on it for three to six months (855).
It is these sort of waiting times which give ammunition to those who say the money spent on the health services is failing to produce a good enough return. Much of that money, however, is being spent refurbishing buildings and renewing equipment and while it may make for a better quality health service it won't necessarily make an impact on numbers.
That impact is only likely to come from an increase in bed numbers and supporting staff. This is clear from the list of hospitals with the biggest waiting lists in numerical terms: Mater 4,017; St Vincent's l 3,170; Beaumont Hospital 2 ,316; Tallaght Hospital 1,720; University College Hospital Galway 1,628; Tullamore General Hospital 1,415; Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children 1,160; and St James's Hospital, 1,004.
With two exceptions, all these hospitals are in Dublin which suffered the bulk of the bed losses in the era preceding the arrival of the Celtic Tiger.
hospitalwatch@irish-times.ie Hospital Watch on the web:
www.irelandcom/special/hospital