Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)

This is no reflection on the Minister, but about ten years ago I sat in the Department of Health and we talked about all of this and very little has moved. If someone is in the children's hospital and reaches the age where he or she has to go to the adult hospital, are those systems integrated? That is my first question.

I understand there are sensitivities around procurement but there are only one or two big systems around that we are talking about. My second question is again on IT. We mentioned general practitioners. GPs have been 95% computerised for the past 25 years, since the year 2000. We know that from the chronic disease management programme. In order to participate in that programme, one had to be computerised. There is a 95% uptake of GPs. In fact, we were talking to 40 GPs who operating an old system. There is a great dependence on one or two companies. One company dominates the GP space. There is great concern that if that company for any reason - I am not suggesting it will - became vulnerable financially or otherwise, or was sold out of the State, this whole network of the only part of the health service that is fully computerised and paperless would collapse. This is a question not an opinion but would it not be a worthwhile project to look into the HSE and Department taking over the national GP, and integrating it with the rest of the health service?