Mr. John Farrelly:

Some other countries have metrics to look at for access, what happens, timelines and different things. We are quite informal in Ireland and there is no one monitoring or accounting for that. People slipping through the cracks is something that we hear about continuously from professionals, families and everyone involved. We are building primary care centres and it should not be the case that the only alternative to a general practitioner is an accident and emergency department in order to ensure someone is safe. We must build our community services so there are hubs to which people can go 24 hours a day.