Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To start where Senator Dolan finished, I agree that this is less than ideal. That said, I alerted the committee as soon as I knew that there was a Cabinet meeting at 10 a.m. I was here three weeks ago and will be back again in November. I am happy to come back this afternoon, tomorrow, or whenever the committee wants me to be here. I am always available to this committee and these Houses. There is no issue in that regard. We obviously also have our colleagues from the HSE, including the director general, who can continue this meeting in the interregnum and deal with a lot of the questions being raised.

I visited Bandon Community Hospital last year with Deputy Margaret Murphy O'Mahony and was very impressed with the facility and the extension. I will ask the HSE to respond to the Deputy this morning or by way of correspondence on when that facility will be open. I was struck by the dedication of everybody there and the energy in the place. We are eager to get that happening and I will get a date for the Deputy.

On the issue of family resource centres, while there could be a health element, I do not know the details. I know that generally such centres are funded by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. I also know that the Minister, Deputy Zappone, announced in her budget day speech some additional funding for family resource centres, so perhaps that might be an avenue worth exploring further. I will ask the HSE to respond to the Deputy directly regarding the rehabilitation and endoscopy unit.

I thank Senator Colm Burke for raising the issue of Cork University Maternity Hospital, CUMH, as it provides me with an opportunity to acknowledge the incredible clinical leadership that is being shown by the community in CUMH, by Dr. Cathy Burke, Dr. Keelin O'Donoghue and their colleagues. They came to see me last year, with the HSE and the hospital group, on the new women and infants programme. They highlighted the fact that women in the Cork region were waiting longer for procedures than was the average around the country. In some cases, they were waiting significantly longer. They told me that they were putting together a plan to address this issue, asked me to resource that plan and to support them. They assured me that they would deliver results and they have been true to their word. They have made significant progress this year which is why, when it came to the budget day announcement, I committed to moving on to the next phase of that plan. We will be engaging with the women and infants health programme and the South/South West hospital group in this regard as we move forward with the service planning. There will be additional resources and funding available, but obviously that is a matter for the service plan and our dialogue with the HSE in that regard. When people in the health service put up their hand, make a proposal, ask for support and then achieve what they said they would, it is very important that we continue to support them. I believe we will see significant further progress on this in 2018. Again, I thank Senator Burke for highlighting the issue.

Regarding the fair deal scheme, as the Senator will be aware, a review of pricing mechanisms is ongoing and these are issues that can be considered in that context by our colleagues in the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF. The point the Senator makes is an important one in terms of the profile of patients in our nursing homes. That profile has changed quite significantly in recent years and is only likely to continue in that direction. Thankfully, as the Senator points out, people are living longer but often have complex conditions and a greater degree of dependency by the time they enter a nursing home. Thankfully, statistics show that people are largely staying out of nursing homes until later in life and are then spending less time there, largely. That discussion is ongoing through the pricing review mechanism and I do not wish to comment much further on it.