Ms Emma-Jane Morgan:

I thank the Senator for the question. As the Senator is aware, the Government took the decision on 28 December 2020 to implement what we now call the Northern Ireland planned healthcare scheme. The decision was taken to implement it for 12 months initially, on an administrative basis. Therefore, the focus between the HSE and the Department has been about bedding down the arrangements to put in place the administrative scheme. However, the Government very much intends to underpin the scheme with a legislative basis. Within the Department, once we have progressed the bedding down of the arrangements for the operations of the administrative scheme, we will turn our attention towards looking at the legislative basis to give it the statutory underpinning. That was very much part of the Government decision at the time, that it would have a legal basis to support the scheme. The 12-month basis is really about the administrative scheme being put in place initially.