Optometrists are warning that the waiting list for eye care remains unacceptably high at more than 42,300 and they have available capacity to get more patients seen sooner.
Spokesperson for Optometry Ireland John Weldon said that the problem is people waiting for treatment after having already been seen by an optometrist.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said: "These are people in the quagmire of the HSE waiting lists, waiting for treatment."
He said waiting times for optometrists is just a matter of days for most people.
But the two major issues are cataracts, which older people generally develop, and also the provision of service for children and young people, he said.
"The NTPF figures themselves have shown that by the end of January just, it's nine and a half thousand people waiting for procedures alone."
He said that "more than more than 1,000 are waiting more than a year".
Mr Weldon said that the waiting lists could be reduced by the obvious implementation of the services that are already available.
"There are 300 optometry practices with over 700 practitioners all across the country. These people are highly trained, have the state-of-the-art equipment necessary to provide these services, and it's been shown that it's 50% less expensive to provide those services locally, as per Sláintecare than it is in a hospital environment."
He explained that Optometry Ireland was a co-author of a shared care scheme in the HSE Western Region centred around Sligo Hospital.
He said that this scheme began in 2012 and allowed the surgeons to carry out surgery and devolved the other work to optometrists in the local community; the cataract delivery service in the west went from three to five years to six months.
"We've presented that on various occasions to the departments of health and finance and we're at a loss as to why they don't want to implement that nationwide."
He said the cost of the delay on a person’s quality of life is immense: "If you can't participate in your regular life, then that's a major quality of life issue and we think that's unacceptable for a procedure which on average takes 12 to 17 minutes from start to finish."
