Mr. Paul Reid:

I want to reinforce one of the early priorities of Sláintecare since we announced the launch of the new regional health organisations, which is to set out a process over the next nine months to develop a roadmap for the transition process, how to get the new regions, what is the staffing configuration and what investment is needed for capacity in acute units and the community facilities. One issue - on which we have to come back to the Government - is for an implementation plan for the regions that will involve integration and the workforce plan. This process will include the numbers and the allocations. I am absolutely committed to where the Deputy is around our need to increase capacity in our primary care centres.

We have a lot of buildings and we now need tosupport them with the adequate resourcing.