Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 May 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion

9:00 am

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will take the national review first. It is independent and the Deputy would rightly criticise me if it was not.

I will, though, convey to the professor the need for an update that I can furnish to the Deputy and other representatives about concrete measures for the public consultation. My understanding is that it will begin next month and the means by which his constituents and others can make their views known on it will be advertised and publicised. Professor Nolan was eager that the review would be truly national and that all the meetings would not be held in Dublin. The review group will travel around the country to meet interested stakeholders. Its membership includes patient representatives from the Irish Heart Foundation. It is a different model from that we have previously used. I wrote to the chairman outlining that he or she had 18 months but we would be pleased if it could be done quicker. I am conscious of speed and accuracy working side by side. If the review could be completed within 12 months, I would be delighted but the group has 18 months to conclude its work.

With regard to the interim measures, some of the Deputy's comments are fair and legitimate. I made a decision to deploy a mobile laboratory and he acknowledged the progress that made in respect of one element of the waiting lists. I then made another decision to extend the deployment of the mobile lab and I have since extended it further. I am a little frustrated that I have had to do that because I would rather have done what the Deputy suggested, which is provide the additional hours that Professor Herity recommended in his report and which we have funded through the Estimates process in order that the existing cath lab could be open for longer.

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