Mr. Jim Breslin:

We have turned our mind to the challenge of implementing Sláintecare, which is not just to approach each recommendation individually, but to determine the critical success factors that need to be put in place to realise the vision set out in the report. We will return to the committee in November, but it is fair to say at this stage that there is a view that the Department of Health always sees money as the answer to every problem. In this ten-year review, however, the critical success factor will be the workforce and our ability to create conditions in which people want to take up the opportunities that we will make available over that period. This applies to GPs and right across the workforce. Some of it relates to remuneration, but it is also about trying to create conditions in which people can see that the types of career we have in Ireland are those that they are interested in and that are at least as good as, if not better than, those available elsewhere around the world. Much of this goes beyond simple remuneration issues into the workplace climate, how we evolve our health service, the types of arrangement that we put in place for people to structure their working weeks and careers, and trying to work with and listen to people who are currently facing the question of whether to continue their careers in this country or abroad. The Chairman is well aware of how many of our GP trainees face that decision at the moment.

A critical piece of work to be done as part of the implementation structure for Sláintecare will be workforce planning and addressing the issues that are causing us difficulty in recruiting and retaining our workforce, particularly graduates, so that when we put people through publicly funded educational programmes to turn them into health professionals, we get the benefit of that. I do not have all of the answers today, but this will be one of the chief components of a successful implementation of the Committee on the Future of Healthcare's report. It not only applies to GPs, but to so much else as well.