Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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Before members come in, I will ask Mr. O'Brien to clarify two points from his opening statement. He posed the question of how much the taxpayer was willing to hand over for the health service at once. Can he address this question in the context of recent OECD figures which show that Ireland is very close to the top in terms of health spending? Even if we just take the taxpayer-funded element of that, we are still very close to the top. Is he saying that we need to spend more than any other OECD country? Is there not an issue about getting much better value for money with the existing spend?

Mr. O'Brien also said that the question of whether the structures were optimal or not has become less important than the need to implement them fully. That remains an open question for this committee, given the frequency with which the issue of structures has come up. It is hard for us to accept the case for implementing and bedding down structures that are not necessarily optimal. Attempting to close off discussion would be an issue for the committee as it is a very live issue for us.