Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are already beginning to see a benefit in that regard. The leadership in the hospital and the hospital group is well up for this challenge. It and I have a role to play and we are working collaboratively.

Regarding the GP contract, and as I mentioned on the recent budget day, there was no budget day funding allocation in the year that the free GP care for under sixes was introduced, which Deputy Kelly will remember, given that he was a member of the Cabinet at the time. When the then Minister of State, Ms Kathleen Lynch, and the Taoiseach, who was the then Minister, announced on budget day their intention to expand free GP care to children under six years of age, no one in this room would have been able to find where the funding for that was in the budget. It was not there. When the expansion was agreed, the Ministers reverted to the Government to seek specific funding. I am pleased that the current Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, gave significant prominence to this issue in his Budget Statement on the record of the Dáil and mentioned that there would be a need to provide multi-annual resourcing to deliver a new GP contract.

This is an issue on which the Chairman regularly quizzes me. My message to GP organisations is that, although we have a primary care fund of €25 million in the budget, of course we will not deliver a new GP contract for €25 million. We can do something in this regard in 2018. If we reach agreement with GPs on a number of other measures that are ambitious and will make a real difference, I will be willing to revert to the Government and consider a multi-annual approach.

On the issue of orphan drugs, the timelines that I outlined and committed to Deputy Kelly in the Dáil still stand.