Mr. Paul Reid:

I will come back on two aspects, some of which relates to Deputy O'Connell's question too. There will have to be two aspects to a review.

The first will be what the Comptroller and Auditor General called a "re-look" at which is the best model for delivery in the future between public private partnerships, lease and the capital funded plan. We want to have that aspect of the review done in the first half of next year because it is key.

The second aspect of the review, which Deputies O'Connell and Catherine Murphy just mentioned, is to proof it against Sláintecare. Part of the proposal that went to the Government about the announcement of regions was that we would revert to the Government in the first half of next year about the functioning and establishment of regions and real, integrated operational care between acute and primary care. How we use primary care centres must be a key aspect of our next report. The history of primary care centres is long, going back to the health board system and through the nine CHO settings. We need to look at them as much more of an integrated service which is a very different way of looking at them. It might mean a reassessment of priorities.

The second part of the question related to the staff and therapists in general. If one stands back from the Deputy's point, it is absolutely correct. Some 80% of our staffing, across the HSE, are women and approximately 35% of staff are on reduced working hours, maternity leave, or work part-time, etc. It is a significant issue to manage and, much of the time, we have to manage it through agency because it would not be cost-effective to have all full-time replacements. We meet certain pinch points when it comes to resourcing. Maternity leave also affects some of the primary care centres. We try to cover some of the vacancies through agency or by moving staff between primary care teams. It is an issue that is difficult to manage. That is why we use agency and move staff between some of the primary care teams.