Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is kind of ironic that I come to a health committee meeting and when I am asked not to deliver my opening statement but to take it as read, the second comment from a member of the health committee critiques what is not in the opening statement. As the Deputy knows, opening statements are a brief summation of some current issues. He knows the meat of these meetings comprises what we discuss through questions and answers. If the Deputy so wishes, the next time I attend this committee I can provide a lengthy opening statement and read it in great detail. Deputy Alan Kelly and others would rightly criticise me for doing so. I ask Deputy Donnelly not to be pedantic in that regard.

The Deputy will note that a significant portion of my opening statement speaks to the greatest potential crisis facing our country at the end of this month, which is Brexit. He might excuse a Minister coming before a sectoral committee and highlighting what the Government and its agencies are doing about it.

I say to the people mentioned by the Deputy that we absolutely must do better. Since I became Minister, fewer people have waited for a hospital operation. Fewer people are waiting today for a hip or knee operation or a cataract procedure.

I say to those people that when Deputy Donnelly's current party was last in office, it did not publish outpatient waiting list numbers. When Deputy Micheál Martin was Minister for Health and Children, he did not publish statistics for the outpatient waiting lists and we had did not have a clue about them. It took my party and Deputy Kelly's party to go into government and decide to publish those numbers. A Fine Gael-Labour Government was the first to publish them.

I say to those people that we have agreed a reform plan for the next ten years, which we have never done before in the country. It is Sláintecare and I think we all agree on it. It will reorientate healthcare. We have made major progress with inpatient waiting times. In fairness, the Deputy's party has played a constructive role in that, which I acknowledge. We have not made anywhere near as much progress as we need to with outpatients. We will have to reorientate the health service to do it. What does that mean practically for somebody waiting today? It means the new GP contract, which I agreed with GPs and which 95% of GPs voted in favour of because they recognised it as a good deal for general practice, will see from the start of next year conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure being treated in the community for the first time. These conditions treated through the outpatient process currently. I hope members have visited Connolly Hospital's urgent care centre to see the facility at work. As its chief executive said, it means approximately 500 more kids on the outpatient waiting list will be treated, as it targets those who are waiting longest.

The Deputy specifically referred to consultants. Earlier this week, I wrote to the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, inviting its representatives for talks next week on how we can sort out some of the consultant recruitment and retention issues, which are very real. Those talks will begin with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the HSE and my Department on how to resolve those issues. We sat at this committee last year discussing how to sort out supporting general practice and we have done so. We worked our way through with nurses a deal that came about, although admittedly after industrial action. We need to do the same with consultants as we need more of them.

This will require a multifaceted approach and doing a number of things, including shifting more to the community, which is exactly what Sláintecare is starting to do. We will have to ask our GPs to do more and give them more resources. There will have to be more consultants in hospitals. I fully accept the points made by the IHCA and IMO about consultant numbers. There is no disputing those numbers.