Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Apologies, but I had to duck down to the Chamber for ten minutes so I missed a bit of the last session. I have been listening with huge interest. This has been a most interesting discussion today. I think it has been particularly useful to get the international dynamic from Mr. Broadhead. My sister-in-law is Australian and her family are quite familiar with the new system over there. She raves about it to me all the time. It is interesting to hear Dr. Walsh's and Ms Walsh's experience of Zoe's counterpart. It is interesting to hear that they can see like for like, and the Australian system is outperforming our system and is meeting the needs much better than we are, unfortunately. In respect of my own background, before I became a Deputy I worked for a multinational corporation. When we worked on projects, we used to always identify successful projects and things that worked in certain countries or areas of the business. People were tasked with coming up with a play book that could effectively be given to other arms of the business to show them how to do it and what success looked like and to provide them with all of the tips and tricks to get there. Obviously, even in that situation, national laws were sometimes an impediment and national resources had to be looked at. It was key that there was such a focus on sharing that information in cases where something worked and was successful, and trying to bring people up a level. I value the contributions of all the witnesses, but it is really valuable to hear the Australian perspective today. We have a lot to learn from it. I am pleased that Mr. Broadhead has taken the time to talk us through it. I hope that we can further collaborate, because that is how we can improve the Irish system.

The funding model, in particular, that Mr. Broadhead spoke about is quite interesting, where funding is allocated to an individual or a family and they acquire the services that they need themselves. I was not expecting that to be working so well, given that quite often we hear from witnesses at this committee who may have been given funding for a PA-type service and cannot acquire it. They have the money, but cannot access the service and it is of no use to them. I would like to ask some questions around the practicalities of that in the hope that we could learn and put in place systems that could help the likes of Dr. Walsh, Ms Walsh and Zoe and all of the organisations that are represented here today.

I am wondering what happens from a human resources perspective. Are there enough professionals in the area? Were there enough already when the new scheme started out, or was investment in recruitment strategies required? Did the Australian Government have to invest in courses so that people could qualify in an area to be recruited? Are there geographical issues? Obviously, Australia covers a massive area. Mr. Broadhead referenced Alice Springs, where there may be a higher prevalence of demand, but it obviously has quite a small population. How does it work in situations like that? I would be particularly interested in hearing any lessons learned from the recruitment aspect. A number of my colleagues referenced Sláintecare. That is quite similar to the strategy that Mr. Broadhead spoke about in that it continues no matter who is in power or government. It is an initiative that is cross-party and that everybody signed up to. I believe there is a lot in that that we need to continue, but we also need to ensure that it adequately addresses this entire area. As we set out to do that, I wonder if there are particular lessons that the Australian Government has learned or challenges that it has had to overcome on the human resources side, in particular. I would appreciate any information on that.

All the participants have brought unique perspectives to the meeting and I really value them. It is important that we have these kind of discussions. They put these issues on the agenda nationally. That is what we have to do if we are to make a change.