Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy would acknowledge that both the HSE and my Department have provided and will provide any and all information needed to the committee. We are very eager to do that, but I would not want him to think that we are in any way bored or waiting for this report.

We are driving on with trying to make a number of improvements in the health service. The Deputy will see funding to take on another 1,000 nurses in the budget allocation, which was already announced in the House. He will not only see that but also the rectification of a pay inequality issue relating to the increment for a graduate nurse between 2011 and 2015, which graduate nurses tell me will help with recruitment and retention.

At my first Question Time in this House, Deputy Kelleher said to me that people have been talking about primary care since Rory O'Hanlon was Minister for Health. What will we do? Work is already under way in my Department and the HSE for a new GP contract. Those talks commence this year. The Deputy will see the first ever plan for the national obesity strategy, which is a ticking time bomb for our health service. There is also the work of the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, in terms of implementing A Vision For Change and the youth mental health task force. A new national drugs strategy will be published in January. There is a new accountability framework to hold HSE managers to account and we will bring the HSE budget in on budget for the first time in several years. We are certainly not sitting around waiting but we should align a five-year health service plan with the work of the Committee on the Future of Healthcare.

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