David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Chair may cut me off after ten minutes. I believe there are ten minutes each for myself and Deputy Shortall.

This been a long meeting. We started the meeting by trying to get answers as to why these people resigned, because these are key people. Second, we wanted to get answers as to whether we were on the right track in relation to healthcare reform. Leaving testy exchanges and differences opinion we might have in the committee aside, many people looking in at this committee, or even people who are not looking in because they are working in healthcare, or are one of the 900,000 people who are on a waiting list, might see the healthcare service as not working for them. They feel that the healthcare service does not work for them and that their experience with it is not a good one. If they get into the health system, it is a great experience, but it is getting in that is the problem. They are concerned about what we are going to do, what our next steps will be, and what big changes we will see in healthcare. That is the starting point for me. Far too many people do not see the public health service working for them. This is why the Oireachtas made a commitment to create a single-tier health service for universal healthcare. One of the first things the Minister said in his opening remarks was that we are a long way away from universal healthcare, which we are.

My commitment is to work with everybody, including those Government and people in the system, to make universal healthcare happen. However, when people resign from the programme that is designed to bring those changes on the scale that they have been resigning, and when these people are in senior positions, it calls into question in public's mind, at least, whether or not there is something more fundamentally wrong. If one listens to what the Minister and Mr. Watt have said today, there is to some degree an air of bewilderment and puzzlement as to why these people resigned. The Minister has given us his view as to why they resigned.

If I am reading this right, the Minister said that given that progress was made, there was an air of puzzlement or bewilderment as to why Ms Magahy and Professor Keane, in particular, stepped away from their positions. Would that be a fair assessment of the Minister’s view?