Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and members for their attention and questioning thus far. I will answer to the best of my ability. I do not have the answers for all of the questions but anything I can answer I will to the best of my ability and anything I fail to answer I will come back to the members directly or to the committee with more detailed information.

Deputy Kelleher spoke about humanising the system and officialdom versus reality. The role of politicians and politics and the role we play all day every day as representatives is to attempt to humanise it. I appreciate where the Deputy is coming from. A lot of the figures, facts, percentages and statistics tend to mask the reality and be a protective mechanism, and appear as such to us as public representatives. Nonetheless, that is how systems are run and analysed and metrics have to be involved but I take on board the point and I accept what the Deputy has said. Our job is to keep humanising it and bring to the fore real examples as the Deputy did, of the 86 year old lady who is in a bed and getting help six days a week but not the seventh day. These are real challenges for the system.

The Deputy asked what can we expect from the €850 million funding for primary care. He made the point that if we are to move towards primary care and go along with Sláintecare, which we all accept is the way forward, it will be important. If we are going to put such emphasis on primary care we will have to fund it accordingly, which will be a real challenge, and the Deputy will appreciate this from his years of observing the health system and other areas where he has served. The challenge will be in trying to reorient a system away from the here and now, and the day to day pressures on the demand-led scheme, and trying to pull funding back and reorient it into a new system. It takes time and it is a huge challenge, and the very best we can really hope for is that a lot of it will be done with new funding, and that as new funding comes on stream, a larger proportion of it will go into primary care and this is how we will slowly and, hopefully, substantially build the funding to run it. We are aware of the Sláintecare report.

The Deputy made a point on requiring more GPs, and in my opening remarks I acknowledged that we will need up to 1,000 new GPs. The GP contract and negotiations were mentioned by a number of members. I understand negotiations with the IMO will recommence in the coming weeks. They have been stalled since the end of last year. They are due to commence with intensity and there is an expectation. It is not for me to put a timeline on it, but I hope that by the end of the year significant progress will be made on this to substantially address the issues that are there. There is the FEMPI issue about which the GPs are very vocal and there are a number of other issues. The Government will make the point that in return for any additional funding new ways of doing business will be required along with it.