Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Other than that, the projects are proceeding in accordance with the plan and we will spend all our capital funding this year.

The Deputies highlighted the importance of primary care. When the former Deputy Rory O'Hanlon was Minister for Health at the end of the 1980s, he spoke about the importance of making a decisive shift to primary care. Every Minister for Health since then has done his or her bit to help with that, but we must get serious about it now. I do not believe we can make the substantial progress that is needed without the new GP contract. I expect to have significant progress on that by the end of this year. Hopefully, this will enable us, subject to normal budgetary constraints, to roll out a number of developments in 2018, 2019 and beyond that would see services which are currently provided in the acute hospital setting being provided in a primary care setting. There is no disputing the fact of the underspend, although Deputy Kelleher acknowledged that it is very small as a percentage of the primary care budget. There have been some delays, particularly in respect of the recruitment of staff. We are all aware of that from our constituency work as well as our work in the Dáil. We are hearing that is improving and we are expecting that the primary care budget will be spent in full this year.

With regard to the primary care centres and the lack of response afforded to Deputy Kelly, that is not appropriate. Every Member of the House should get official responses from the HSE. I will follow up on that.

As regards the fair deal-----