Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 15 June 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Sláintecare Implementation: Discussion

Mr. Robert Watt:

No, not specifically in respect of the legislation. As we discussed at the previous meeting, the extent to which a legislative basis will be required is unclear. It depends on how this advances. Some of the elements on which Mr. Reid touched probably require legislative change. That is certainly the case in respect of performance management and disciplinary processes because the legislative basis for identifying alleged misperformance or harm done to a person and the disciplinary action in that regard is old. The procedures are old, time-consuming and chunky. Obviously, I will not go into individual cases, but it takes many years and is very unsatisfactory. We will have to look at the legislative underpinnings for some of those performance elements and bring forward legislative changes. As ever, we want to try to do that as efficiently as possible on an administrative basis and only legislate where we absolutely have to do so. Legislation will be required in respect of some of those elements but we have not bottomed that out yet. We have not got a definitive view on it.

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