Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy should wait until the paper is produced. He can then ask the questions and contribute to the debate, but let us work together to have an answer to one of the most intractable, difficult and challenging policy issues facing the governments of every developed country - that is, to provide an affordable, efficient, quality health service for a population that is ageing. We now enjoy longer life expectancy, thankfully, and while medicine is becoming more expensive it is capable of treating more conditions. Advances are being made in drugs and medical treatment generally.

We need to have an affordable system so that everybody can enjoy equal access to it. Let us have a debate about how that system can be constructed, but the Deputy should wait until the proposals are published. Leaks and comments will be made by all and sundry. I know people sometimes approach these matters with a partisan political axe to grind, but this is an important and fundamental issue for us to get right. Let us hear a frank and clear debate on the proposals once they are published.

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