Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is a significant moment for the committee. In fairness to the witnesses, the report is excellent, but this was not part of Dr. de Buitléir's terms of reference. The Government has committed to implementing this report, the Minister said he supported it, but now its author, in a personal capacity, has articulated the question: what is the point in having these facilities if we are going to implement this report? They will be redundant. Is there not a significant issue, which many of us have been raising here for a considerable time, with the implementation of the national children's hospital and the national maternity strategy? We can probably pull the latter back because the Government does not have the capital funding to carry out much of it at present, as people in my area know. However, do we need to write to the Minister and the Department of Health about this, based on what we have heard today? Perhaps we should talk about the matter at another point.

I thank Dr. de Buitléir for his responses and his honesty.