Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister very much for his presentation. I also thank him and his Department for all the work they have done over the past 20 months in dealing with the Covid pandemic. I will return to a number of issues he touched on. The first is the resignations. There is a view that Ms Laura Magahy and Professor Tom Keane, although less so in respect of Professor Geraldine McCarthy who resigned as head of the group in Cork, were forced to resign because they felt that what they wanted to deliver in respect of Sláintecare was not going to be delivered, that there was resistance in the Minister's Department to their planned approach to what was agreed on an all-party basis with regard to Sláintecare and that sufficient progress was not being made. That is the view out there. The Minister barely touched on these people leaving their roles in his statement. Will he clarify some of the issues surrounding their leaving and the progress we can make without them? They have great experience and their leaving is a very significant loss.