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

I welcome the publication of the Health Identifiers Bill 2013 and today’s announcement of an e-health strategy for Ireland. Will Mr. O'Brien provide the committee with more detail of the scope and objectives of this strategy, as well as the timelines for kicking and dragging our health system’s use of technology into the 21st century?

I also welcome the recent announcement of the establishment of a review group to examine the 0 to 18 year old category of people with lifelong conditions, so as to establish how we can best serve their medical needs through devices or access to services they might lose by losing their medical card. This is particularly welcome given the media attention on children with Down’s syndrome who have lost their medical cards over the past several weeks.

Bringing forward the HIQA investigation into ambulance response times is an acknowledgment that we have an issue in this area, be it a public perception or real one. What will be the scope of the investigation? When will it start and finish? How quickly will we respond to its recommendations? If there are particular hotspots where the accepted call-out time for 70% of ECHO calls is not achieved, will factors around these be fed into the scope?

The public deal announced by Mr. Tony O’Brien solving a particular issue at St. Vincent’s Hospital is due to the fact that the gentleman in question will be completely paid out of private funds. This fixes the issue arising for section 39 bodies. The Minister said this morning, however, that he found it wholly unacceptable that one person should be the chief executive officer of both hospitals as it causes a conflict of interest. Will the Minister reconcile this with the HSE’s announcement that fixed that situation several days ago?