Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My God, I certainly hope I will be. I will not take a lecture from the Fianna Fáil Party on how to run a health service when I still find myself having to try to unpick some of the structural difficulties with which it left me through the creation of the HSE, which has become an awful bureaucratic scenario that we must pare back.

One of the first decisions taken by this House on a cross-party basis was to set up a cross-party committee. It is accepted that it is going to involve us all in pulling together and that it will take a ten-year period to get this absolutely right. While I have many responsibilities which I endeavour to discharge with enthusiasm and my very best effort, anybody coming into the House to suggest we should abolish one charge has a responsibility to tell us how we would replace it. I am sure that in due course when the election is held - God willing, it is quite a long time away - Fianna Fáil's manifesto will detail how the €642 million that would be removed from the health service budget with the swipe of a pen would be replaced or the services we would not be able to provide.

Let me be clear that I think the Deputy has a fair point that there could be unintended consequences with regard to the current legislation. That is why I am doing two things. At the request of Deputy Billy Kelleher at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health, I am carrying out an analysis which will be presented very shortly. I will then review the legislation in that context and revert back to the Deputy.

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