James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

In the interests of clarity, the Deputy is right. All is not wrong, there is much that is very good about the Irish health service. What is particularly good about it are the excellent people we have working in it. It was the system within which they were working that was preventing them from delivering the sort of care at the speed and access people require. That is why we are changing the system. I put it to the Deputy we made it very clear that we would first maximise what we have. That means fixing the inefficiencies in the system, bringing in a money-follows-the-patient system so that there will be a very clear tracking of patients as well as a focus on the patient. Heretofore we had a system that was self-serving rather than one where patients were the focus. They will now be the focus of the system because, simply put, if there is no patient there will be no payment. Only when that is sorted would we bring in universal health insurance.

We have many parallels working at the same time, moving towards the single end point, the universal health insurance system.

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