Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for attending the committee meeting and addressing our concerns on this matter. If someone were to have asked me before this meeting today when the replacement scheme would be put in place, I could have told them that I was on my way into a meeting with the Minister of State and would be able to give them an answer after this meeting. In his contribution the Minister of State talked about significant progress, the complexity of the issue, officials continuing to work hard on it, and the attaching of priority to it. The reason he is before us today is that the committee has concerns about all these matters, with particular regard to delay. The one answer I would like to get from this meeting is to the following question. When are we going to see progress? The Minister of State's contributions suggested that this all boils down to resources. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform would appear to be denying the Minister of State the money. This could be going around the houses forever, and we might find ourselves here in six, nine or 12 months still talking about complexity and the like. It is obvious that there is a need for resources. In recent days we have been dealing with budget 2018. Have any resources been allocated in that budget to bring this matter forward at all? If not, we might as well postpone our discussion until the budget this time next year. If it all boils down to resources, then everything that the Minister of State said about priority, hard work and significant progress is meaningless. Before we leave today, I would like to hear from the Minister of State when we are going to see progress, when we are going to move this health transport support Bill forward, and when it will move to the next stage. I would like to see this happening in the near future.