Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is welcome. I will give my view and I am not suggesting for a moment that Mr. Devane shares it. The Government's commitment to Sláintecare has been fairly weak. The appointment is very welcome but the money put towards it indicates there is no massive interest in implementing it, notwithstanding the cross-party support for it. Sláintecare needs to be driven from the very top as will not succeed otherwise. In the two years since the Sláintecare report was published there has been no discernible progress with regard to it. The Sláintecare report did not just call for a shift to the community, which is really important. It called for the elimination or phasing out, or whatever phraseology we wish to use, of private care from the public health system. I am interested in Mr. Devane's view of privatisation in the health system, by stealth or by Government policy via the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, or the various other ways the public service is undermined, chipped away and hived off into the private sector. In my opinion this does not represent good value for money. I am interested in Mr. Devane's view of private healthcare versus public healthcare. Sláintecare includes a very clear commitment to moving away from private involvement in public hospitals and towards public delivery of care.