Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for their presentations. I fully appreciate the complexity and breadth of the work involved, however I am concerned as it is hard to establish from the presentation whether the work is almost complete or still at a theoretical level. If there were funding allocations attached to each project and a timescale, it would be more helpful. Much of this seems like name-checking from the original report. It may be that or there may be work well under way but we do not have a sense of that from the presentation.

I have six very quick questions. Who will do the Sláintecare contract negotiations? I thought the citizen care master plan population profiling was almost done the last time the witnesses were in contact. When do they expect that will be completed and published? I was very disappointed to hear the elective hospitals will be day hospitals. That is not what was envisaged at all. The witnesses say that is how they went into the national development plan. Can that be changed in the review of the NDP, because it is clear that we will need a lot more than just day hospitals? On the regional health areas, I note the name has been changed. Has the objective changed in any way in terms of a single management structure for all health services in each of the RHAs, as they are being called now? Can we have a note on the detail of the healthy communities and what exactly Sláintecare is doing and how it is going to bring 12 Departments together? I am interested in hearing about that. Finally, where is the work on entitlement versus eligibility?