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

I welcome our visitors. It is important to point out that we are coming to the end of the fifth year of what was supposed to be a ten-year reform programme under Sláintecare. I have to say that when it comes to regionalisation I think the system has stalled, if it is not going backwards. My heart sank when I was listening to the two presentations this morning with regard to regionalisation. Mr. Reid spoke about the senior management team having to own and drive reform. I do not see any evidence of this here. There is no sense of driving a reform programme. I believe what we are seeing is capture of the reform programme. I will support my contention that this is what is happening.

In 2019 the geographical regions were agreed for the regional structure and the map was provided. That was in 2019. They were announced by the then Minister, Deputy Harris, in July 2019. Last year we were told in the strategy and action plan that with the geographical areas agreed, a business plan was being produced and we needed to address the issues of clinical governance, corporate governance and accountability with a population-based approach to service planning and integration of community and acute services. I had been hoping to get an update from the witnesses this morning on these areas and the preparation they are doing on accountability legislation and on a population-based approach to the allocation of resources. However, when I looked at the email Deputy Cullinane referred to earlier, I saw that in one of the paragraphs Mr. Watt spoke about expanding the remit of hospital groups to include community services. A person who makes this statement does not get what Sláintecare is. That is not what Sláintecare is. The hospital groups will no longer apply. These are the regions that have been agreed by the previous two governments. These are the regions Mr. Watt is required to operate to. All of the indications are that he is seeking to rework what government policy was and what was provided for in Sláintecare. What does he mean by expanding the remit of hospital groups to include community services? That has nothing to do with the regionalisation plan as set out in Sláintecare.