Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 June 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Implementation of Sláintecare Reforms: Department of Health and HSE (Resumed)

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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That is what I am saying, so we are at ground zero. My question is how do we get from ground zero to something more substantial, where we actually have contracts in place? We know all of these things take time. We spoke earlier about urgency, and the need to do things better and smarter.

I am trying to tease out where we are at with it. What Mr. Watt said is nobody is against it, but that does not answer the question around at what point will we arrive at being able to hire GPs. I might add to that dentists, because again if you look at what is happening in that space, we have dentists who left the dental treatment service scheme. We have medical card patients who cannot get access to cover. We are wholly reliant on the private sector. That has not worked out for us because clearly, many medical card patients cannot get access to cover. I know there are separate negotiations and discussions on that. Sláintecare promised more insourcing, and more directly-hired public capacity. In these areas, it strikes me that a lot of work has not been done, but maybe Mr. Watt might elaborate on it a bit more. When he says nobody is against it, and he says that there are discussions, where are those discussions and what is being looked at?