Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not have too many questions but they are quite specific. The first is directly for Ms Magahy and relates to her. I do not know how many people in this room were involved in writing the Sláintecare report. To be fair to the Minister, the specific structures put in place - the advisory council, where it fits within Government, structures and everything like that - are those for which we asked.

What is the programme office going to have as its own resources? Ms Magahy referred to a small team earlier on; what is it? Within those structures there is no doubt that there will be frustrations from time to time, dare I say some of them with the man sitting beside Ms Magahy or whoever is in his role. How is she going to deal with them? How is she going to ensure she can get traction within the structures that have been put in place when she is missing deadlines, timelines are not being put in place, and resources are not available? There will be absolutely an element of that. How is she going to use those structures and what is she going to do to ensure that she is getting what she wants when she wants it?

On the 106 actions, there is the whole area of the first number of years and prioritisation. For instance, one of the biggest priorities, which I insisted on, was bringing forward community care, all the issues in respect of home help and the whole range of stuff there, which is common sense, as well as bringing forward diagnostics because it is creating blockages all over the place. I know she is only in her role 25 days, but could Ms Magahy use that as an example in her answer as to how the programme office is going to interact within the structures to make it achievable within the three-year timeframe?

My next question is for the Minister and concerns the hospital capacity review and its implementation. I think I must thank him for his news, as he more or less said the 60-bed unit in Limerick is to be part of the plan he is going to announce. I appreciate that he has confirmed that. With Clonmel and Limerick on either side of me, I get the benefit of having the two worst situations as regards accident and emergency departments and people on trolleys in the whole country. On the actual capacity, I presume there will be some process whereby the alignment of this work with the alignment of Sláintecare is going to be engineered because that is critical.

The Minister might outline a little bit more - best of luck with this one, I mean that in jest - the whole issue of geo-alignment. He said he had timelines for that, what are they? Again I agree with him that it has to be brought forward. I do not think Ms Magahy's work can progress until that alignment happens.

When will the report from the committee of Dr. Donal de Buitléir be available in respect of public-private? The Minister made a statement about GP contracts, I presume in respect of multiple annual funding. Senator Swanick will probably have questions on this. We all know the level of progress is not what it should be. Is the Minister saying that since he has got this agreement now, he is going to see progress moving at a different pace imminently?