Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Mr. McCallion states that there is a need for significant investment, but is there a plan? I appreciate I am being a little parochial but Mr. McCallion stated that the centre in Balbriggan would be developed around existing resources. Mr. McCallion knows already that the existing resources are not adequate to meet demand, so to say it is being developed around existing resources effectively means that we will have general practitioners moving into beautiful buildings, with the ground floor probably leased out to pharmacists, coffee shop proprietors and the devil knows what, but there will be no actual additional services. It does not sound to me like there is any plan to shift over to primary care. There is a plan to talk a lot about shifting over to primary care but there is no plan to actually do it. That is where we find not just mine, but a collective frustration. We all know there is a need to move to primary care but, with respect, the HSE is in the driving seat. However, it either does not have a map or the will to move on it. I do not know what it is happening but there seems to be a blockage. There is no need to state repeatedly at the committee meetings and elsewhere that there is a need to move to primary care. We agree. The question is how it will happen and what is being done. Mr. McCallion stated that it will be developed within existing resources but we have established that existing resources are not sufficient. As Deputy Kelleher alluded to earlier, we might as well write the press release now for the first Tuesday in January 2018 because nothing is going to change.