James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Chairman on her appointment. I do not think we have personally met yet but her passion in this area over the years has always come across clearly. I know that she will keep this committee focused. We could end up going down all sorts of rabbit holes, so staying focused will be key. It is a serious and significant undertaking but I have a lot of hope for the committee. However, with hope comes expectation. We need to end up with an evidence-based strategy which clearly sets out where we want to end up and how we will get there, including pathways and goal setting. Ultimately, the report will need to be tight. We do not want to end up with a report that states what we feel it should state but which would allow those who are to implement it all sorts of get-out clauses due to broad and perhaps passionate wording but wording which is lacking in specifics.

That, of course, will require us to make decisions and those decisions will upset people. I have no doubt a lot of lobbying will be attempted. We will need to close our ears to it and try to look at what we are doing here with an open mind. Everyone here is here for the right reasons. Everyone wants to see an effective health care system. Access to health care and equality in access to health care is a human right. We need to get that point. We have a very ad hochealth care system in this country and there seems to be little rhyme or reason to it. There is a lot of geography lottery and what one can get in one county cannot be got in another. There are also situations in which those in villages on the edge of a county border must travel perhaps 20 miles to their county town when the facility closest to them is only a mile away in the next county. We have that type of carry-on.

If we are modulating this in terms of the different areas and when we are bringing people in, we should consider that the area of mental health is extremely important and can sometimes be forgotten. As spokesperson for mental health, I will try to keep the focus on that area but all the different aspects of our health care will need to be linked in together. I have confidence in the committee and the Chairman's stewardship of it and am looking forward to the next six months.