The Tánaiste and Minister for Health expects to receive proposals shortly on providing outpatient treatment to individuals who have waited lengthy periods for appointments.
Ms Harney said she was "obviously very concerned about the long waiting times being reported in respect of obtaining outpatient appointments in certain specialities".
During Health Questions in the Dáil, she said the National Treatment Purchase Fund, which this year will cater for some 16,000 patients, had worked "extraordinarily well".
It provides public patients who have been waiting for more than three months with private treatment for elective procedures. While the immediate focus had been on reducing waiting lists for admission to hospitals for treatment, she hoped that the fund could now be used for outpatient appointments.
She told Fine Gael's health spokesman, Dr Liam Twomey, that the fund would have an allocation of €64 million this year. In most cases, any public patient waiting more than three months would be facilitated by the fund.
Dr Twomey said the circumstances when trying to see a consultant were a "mess". He called for a radical proposal from the Minister for Health so that patients would know when they would be seen.
