Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I welcome our guests and thank them for their presentations. Reference has been made to training an increased number of professionals. We all agree on this. The degree to which this can be achieved in the short term, particularly with regard to retention, is something on which we are not so readily agreed because we do not know how to do it. It has not been shown to us yet. We are competing on the world market for health professionals and the question that arises immediately is an economic one, which is whether we can afford to compete at the level required to attract the appropriate number of professionals into the system.

I remind people that during the Sláintecare committee sittings, I was at pains to point out the battle that goes on in each Department for resources at budget time. There will always be suspicion among other Departments if one Department is given priority. The good part of this is the Department of the Taoiseach is involved, which will give an overview to everybody involved and recognition that there are pressing issues in this particular area that need to be dealt with. There are equally pressing issues in other areas, such as education and housing. These three areas are fighting for the same resources. To what extent is it feasible to marry together these three Departments in such a way as they can coexist in a complementary way? In particular, elements of housing are complementary to health services in numerous ways. There is the cost and affordability of housing for health professionals and the cost and affordability of housing for patients.

Cost versus vision and entitlement has rightly been referred to. To what extent do the witnesses see progress being made towards achieving the vision and, at the same time, balancing this with the availability of resources that become available? We must also keep in mind that, despite the fact considerable strides have been made in turning the economy around, with the public, Government and politicians in general making a major contribution to this at great cost to the public, we still have considerable national debt, and the servicing of this is also considerable at approximately €6 billion per annum. This must also be brought into the equation. Is it feasible to weave a path between all these competing issues in a way that will achieve the results we desire under Sláintecare?