Ms Catherine Keogh:

I am grateful for the opportunity. At a strategic level, we have no engagement on Sláintecare. At an operational level, Fórsa is engaged with the roll-out of the enhanced community network and we have good engagement on that one particular piece. I will give a very quick example of workforce planning, which we have all mentioned. It took me three years, a motion to our conference from our members and raising it at numerous meetings at our national joint council to get one meeting on workforce planning for dietitians where there is a crisis, partly linked to Brexit, partly linked to training and partly linked to no investment. Simply through the treatment of diabetes, this group of health and social care professionals can keep people at home. Things like that do not happen quickly enough.

As part of Fórsa's submission to the European semester for 2022 and the national reform programme, we believe there is a strong case for the social partners at a high level to be given a role in the implementation of Sláintecare. We think that could be very useful in driving it forward.