Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have no doubt of that but that is quite a lot in the first eight days of a new Minister being in office, in fairness to him. It is not even eight days, it is seven days.

In regard to Deputy Howlin's question, I set out in my speech appointing Cabinet Ministers the two or three major priorities, four in some cases, that I want them to pursue and I will pursue them to make sure that they are pursued. I will also set out some other priorities in the coming weeks and months.

The Sláinte Care report was discussed at Cabinet yesterday. We decided that the Minister for Health would be tasked with preparing a reasoned response to the report and there will be a debate on it in the Dáil on Thursday. There are some aspects of it with which I strongly agree. We need to disentangle the public-private mix in our private hospitals. I strongly agree with that, but I accept and appreciate that this would cost €700 million without a single extra patient being seen. The whole thing needs to be teased out.

Also the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform disputes the numbers. It will not surprise Deputy Howlin to hear that it thinks it will cost much more and that the report does not adequately provide for demographics, but it will not be put on the shelf. There will be a reasoned response to it from the Minister and at the very least we will proceed to implement in the first year or two those things with which we all agree, and that is probably the best approach to it.

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