Professor Anne Matthews:

I will make a start. I thank the Senator for highlighting the question of eligibility for primary care in the Republic. Professor Heenan highlighted that having eligibility does not mean you can access, let us say, a general practitioner. The reason I wanted to emphasise Sláintecare was it is a ten-year all-party strategy, which is very new for health. It was backed by all parties that universal eligibility would be fundamental for primary care, as Ireland was the only country in the OECD that did not have that. It is almost like until that is reached, there is almost no capacity for the other parts of the system to improve. There has been an enhancement of community care, community care networks and primary care services as part of Sláintecare. It would be mistaken to think, however, of eligibility next being increased to 12-year-olds - over-70s have it without means testing and it is going in that piecemeal fashion - when the bigger problem is capacity of the workforce, including general practitioners, practice nurses and all community health professionals. That is the case for both systems. Are there disparities because of that? Probably not, given that there is a means-tested system as well within the Republic so, hopefully, income is not a barrier. Obviously, there are thresholds where people go over that.

The ESRI report was really good. That was an example of funded research that came out of the idea that we should focus on healthcare in a cross-Border way. Having the ESRI's expertise and resources to be able to come to that sad conclusion about data not being disaggregated is a real barrier to any of us. I see it in trying to track workforce movements where they are not separated by which parts of jurisdictions people come from. It is a huge challenge. I do not think there has been any development on the committee, but Professor Heenan can answer that.