Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. My excuse is that I was in the hospital system.

On previous occasions the two Ministers would have attended the committee - for instance, the former Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, and the Minister for Education, Mr. John O'Dowd, MLA. It was useful that they spoke jointly about the co-operation enjoyed but also about the difficulties and the barriers encountered. Will the Minister expand on some of the road blocks or difficulties experienced? Are they political? How many of them are practical?

Previous speakers at this committee spoke about raising the quality of some services, for instance, children not having to travel to Britain. They should just have to take a short drive down the road rather than having to catch a flight and stay in hotels.

I do not know if the Minister mentioned the national children's hospital. I could raise the issue of its location, with which I had difficulties. People want to know what is happening. Those involved in the children's section in Tallaght hospital are concerned about beds that have mysteriously been disappearing out of the system. On the hospital, does the Minister see it providing services on an all-Ireland basis? If he does, when will this kick in? From a practical perspective, when will children see the benefits?

Recently,there was controversy surrounding the cost to the health service in this jurisdiction of treating a number of people who suffered from a rare disease. Did the Minister have practical discussions with his counterparts, not only in the North but also in Britain, about coming together, not only across these jurisdictions but also on a European-wide basis, to look at the cost factors? Recently we had discussions on the spending power of multinationals and how they could bring down prices and so on. Have there been similar discussions, not only with the Minister's counterparts in the North but also across Europe on the issue?

What are the practical things the Minister believes the committee can do? As he is probably aware, it has been doing a lot of work to reach out to many of the Unionist and Nationalist areas in the North. Does he see any benefit in us looking at or visiting some of the hospital or medical settings to see what is and is not working? In practical terms, we want to come back with information on best practice, what works and what does not. Would this be of any benefit to the work done in the Minister's Department?