Chairman:

The fact that Mr. McCarthy's office flagged this up ten years ago and that nothing was done and that the HSE is telling us that it will take a full 14 years to do this is totally unacceptable. We will request further information as to why the HSE is unable to furnish this information. We also need to point out, in reference to this correspondence, that we are not happy about the fact that this was flagged up all of ten years ago, and to ask why it is going to take a full 14 years. There is €17.4 billion, substantial funding, going into the health service, and rightly so. In comparison with the other OECD countries, we are well up there as one of the highest in Europe for the average spend on health per head of population but we do not yet have a national health system. Deputy MacSharry asked whether the HSE has a plan in this regard. The problem is that there is no single system. That is the nub of it.