Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Dr. McLoughlin and wish him the best of luck in all the achievements that, please God, he will achieve over the next number of years. I wish the same to Mr. O'Brien in his role at the HSE. My question specifically pertains to a strategy concerning the framework for a smaller hospitals and the delivery of Professor Higgins's report on regrouping. I understand completely the strategy and appreciate it will be a political decision as to when it is reported upon. All members probably could guess, within particular groupings or areas, the likelihood of what the suggestions will be and they will collaborate with the public. However, given the political and parochial opposition that already is mounting in campaigns nationwide, how do the witnesses plan to manage the roll-out of the much-needed changes? It is a given, based on the national recovery plan and the diminishing budgets available to us, that while services obviously must be delivered in a patient-focused and safe manner, this must be on a regional, as opposed to a parochial basis, to which we have tended to hang on in recent years. Has a strategy been designed to manage that?