Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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On behalf of the Fine Gael Party, I congratulate Deputy Shortall on her election and I wish her every success in the role. It is a daunting task that the Chairman has chosen us to lead and I cannot think of a greater task to be landed on the doorstep of any politician, to be honest, in this day and age, than what all of us have signed up for here, namely, to devise a ten-year strategy for health.

I have never felt so ill-equipped or ill-prepared for anything as landing in a seat here with responsibility to devise a health care policy for the next ten years. With that in mind, there are a couple of points I should make. The first is in regard to lobbying, which will be an issue for all of us. The groups that will not get to appear before the committee will seek us out individually, as we know, and that has started already. They will try to get to us all in that way. Those are the joys of living in a democracy and we must all deal with it. I support Deputy Louise O'Reilly's comments and we should go down the road of written submissions. There is an onus on all of us to take the role seriously and do much of the reading and research ourselves. We do not have to hear from everybody as much can be done through written submissions and us being responsible.

One of the biggest difficulties with the health system in the past has been politics and the flip-flop policy making of politicians, individual Ministers and party policy. There have been changes and movements with whatever way the wind is blowing. I am not sure that has been very helpful in many cases and one would wonder about the influence of politics on the health area. Medical politics is involved as well, which is another story.

The first shot in developing a ten-year strategy should be a presentation from somebody on how to devise a strategy. It might have nothing to do with the medical world but how to plan for ten years. Perhaps we could have a presentation on strategic planning from an academic who might give us some guidance. It is just a suggestion as a starting point for the committee to consider and see how we go. Deputy Kelleher referred to resources, which is an important issue. We saw the resources put into the banking inquiry and I would like to think this committee could serve a function that is equal to that if it does as it is supposed to do. Resources should be made available to the committee, noting the short timeframe, so as to equip us to deal with the challenge we have taken and to do it justice. The savings would be immeasurable down the road if we do the job right.