James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will leave Deputy McLellan's questions on the dentists and medical cards to the Minister of State, Deputy Alex White.

I am sure Mr. O'Brien and Ms Laverne McGuinness will have points to make on the ambulance service in Cork. It would be worthwhile, at a mimimum, conducting a review of local GPs to see what is their experience of the ambulance service and to quantify whether there is a problem, and that would not be overly difficult to achieve. On the terrible tragedies, like others, I again express my sympathy to the families concerned. There will be an investigation. The committee will note from the membership of that investigation that there is nobody from HSE south involved and we have sought expertise from both the North of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Deputy Fitzpatrick mentioned the cochlear implants. We had a good discussion on that already. He asked if I would meet the parents. I would be more than happy to do so. Given the schedule I have had over the past number of weeks, with the EU Presidency, WHO, e-Health conference, etc., that has not been possible. I am pleased that my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, was able to meet them yesterday. I am pleased to be able to say that the funding has been put aside for next year to allow for the simultaneous bilateral implantations to take place but, as I stated earlier, there is a business plan to be put in place. There will be recruitment issues as well. I compliment the consultant who does this work, Ms Laura Viani. She is a wonderful person. She has been doing it for years and she works only in the public sector.

There are questions about Mullingar hospital and the removal of the emergency department in Navan. We made clear that there will be no change in Navan emergency department until such time as there is capacity in the system to allow that to happen, and that is not any time soon that I see. For me to preclude what will and will not happen, however, would be to defeat the very purpose of the hospital groups, which is, to devolve as much authority and autonomy locally as possible, and allow them control over their own staff recruitment, over their own budgets and over procurement in so far as it is possible, and that they communicate with us centrally to ensure that the deals they are getting are the best deals available and that we are aware of the best deals available to transpose across the system.

Mr. O'Brien can answer more comprehensively on the budget issue.

Mention was made of mental health. The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, will deal with that.

Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan mentioned the issue of alcohol. I have had many discussions with my Cabinet colleagues on this. The Minister of State, Deputy Alex White, and I met only yesterday on progressing this to a memorandum to Government. There is obviously a degree of tension in certain areas between certain Departments, but we in the Department of Health are clear. We acknowledge the significant damage that abuse of alcohol does. I reiterate my commitment to protecting children and in my view, it is inappropriate to have advertising earlier than a certain hour or watershed at night. Sporting events are critically important to the well-being of children in that we are trying to get them to take more physical exercise and be involved in sport and community and major sporting events are part of that continuum, and I do not believe it is appropriate that these sporting events should be sponsored by alcohol companies.