James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

This centre or a centre for Wicklow town is critical indeed. We have no wish for a centre that is at an advanced stage to fail. I accept what the Deputy across the Chamber is saying in terms of banks not lending and the difficulties therein. We are looking outside the box at various methods of how we might fund the primary care centres we require throughout the State. We need a large number of them. However, I am of the same mind as my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Shortall. She is equally concerned about not only buildings but about services being available. This is why the emphasis on the previous question related to revenue for the employment of staff to provide services and care. That is in no way to suggest that we are resiling from investing in a capital programme or from making capital available to GPs to invest or from the State investing in primary care centres where they are clearly not commercially viable. However, where they are commercially viable we seek partners and interests from outside in respect of funds we can make available or joint partnerships to develop the range of primary care centres we need.

Deputy Donnelly's point is well made. Aside from the excellent new services and care they will bring and aside from the fact that they will take considerable pressure off hospitals, they will provide real employment in their areas. That is a factor as well.

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