Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

On Drogheda, the facility is ready. There are issues in terms of recruiting staff and industrial relations. The process will happen this year and money is being provided for that. I do not have the precise opening date for the new facility. I had discussions yesterday with INMO and hope that the current staff could move into the new facility to provide the services which are currently being provided in a facility which is not fit for purpose as we ramp up to get additional staff, in particular paediatric nurses. The process of recruitment will happen this year and the facility will open.

On the integrated service areas, everything we have been trying to do is to integrate services between the hospital and the community. In some regions of the country, such as the west, we spend €2 billion on health and have 27,000 employees. It makes sense that they would work in an integrated fashion. If we are to move staff, which is part of the Croke Park agreement, from the hospital to the community in order that services can be provided there, we need to operate on that basis. If memory serves me correctly, I understand there will be 18 to 24 service areas over the next period of years. It will not happen fast; it will take a considerable amount of time, as the Deputy is aware.

The purpose of an integrated service area is to integrate all the public health services which are happening in a coherent fashion in order that we do not have a situation where the hospital is not encouraged to give somebody something to which he or she is entitled because it will come from its budget and it pushes the problem out into the community where it can be paid for out of another organisation's budget or vice versa. That is the kind of confusion which exists when we do not integrate the services we provide.

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