Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am a general practitioner and I take Dr. Figueras's comments on doctors in a very open and reflective way. My questions really relate to efficiency and effectiveness in the system. One of the slides seen by the committee showed a pie chart with 49% of treatments being of unknown effectiveness. That seems to be a huge failure in delivering an effective health service. Will the witness comment on that? Is that because we are practising defensive medicine or is it because the treatments generate income so they are a good source of finance for certain parts of the health service?

A slide indicated how to improve performance, transparency, accountability and participation in our health service. We feel that our health service is not transparent or accountable and we are about to put an extra €900 million in funding into our health service. I would like to see that delivered in a very focused way, so will Dr. Figeuras's comment on how to focus funding to effective services?