Michael Harty (Clare, Independent)
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Thank you Commissioner for that comprehensive overview. As I said to you earlier today, we are in the process of developing a report on the future of our health service. Our health service is quite fragmented. It is very inefficient, with long waiting lists for procedures, long waiting lists for outpatients appointments and difficulty in accessing diagnostics.

We are trying to move to a different focus in our health service, from a focus on hospital-centred services to community and primary care-centred services. We have looked at many European countries in terms of how they organise their health services and what their structures are. We seem to be out of line in that we do not have a universal single-tier service. In your experience across Europe, what is the effect of a universal single-tier service?