David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome our witnesses and thank them for the extensive briefing documents they submitted, as well as the opening statement and the asks they have of this committee.

I will start with the national strategy because it is important. The most important point the witnesses made in their presentation is we do not have an overarching national strategy and have not for five years. Just for the record, I was part of a delegation of Oireachtas Members from the south east that met Simon Harris when he was Minister for Health. He signed off on the Nolan review. The genesis of that was there was a discussion at that point about cardiac services in the south east, which the witnesses might recall, and whether or not PPCI services should be available on a 24-7 basis. A previous report had not recommended that and the Minister at the time said the best way forward was to ask Professor Nolan to look at emergency services and their locations across the State. I understand that report has been on the Minister's desk for months. It should be published. The initial terms of reference were to look at emergency services, so I imagine there would be more work needed to turn his work into a national strategy. The Minister says it covers more than emergency services, but a national strategy has to look at treatment of course. I mean the full range of treatments from planned to emergency. It has to look at diagnostics, imaging and all the other issues the witnesses have raised. Prevention is really important, as is management of the disease in the community. We will get to some of those in a few minutes. Through this committee and the Chair’s offices I call on the Minister again to publish that report. It should set out recommendations for regions so people can know what exactly is being proposed. That is especially important to us in the south east, but we need a national strategy. I understand there are staff who are ready to start working on the strategy but cannot until the Nolan report is published. That is the first point.

I ask the witnesses to address quickly how important it is to have that national strategy.