Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will have a lengthier time to discuss this issue tomorrow. It deserves and requires more time. The Deputy is correct that I do have a duty to deliver health reform. Clearly I have to discharge that duty in terms of my membership of the Cabinet and the Government. I formally received the report, which I am happy to describe as an excellent piece of work unprecedented in terms of cross-party effort. There are many elements within it that reflect my own thinking, which I articulated when I had an opportunity to address the committee. While I am eager that we put in place health care reform as outlined in respect of Sláintecare, we need to discuss some elements of the report. The Government will have a duty to do its own analysis of the costings, and to put in place implementation structures that can get on with delivering the report. I am committed in that regard.

While a number of elements of the report are in line with long-standing Government policy, such as e-health, integrated workforce planning, and clinical governance, it also puts forward a number of key policy changes, which I welcome. The biggest is the clear indication of a desire to move towards the establishment of a universal single-tier system, where access to care is on the basis on need and not ability to pay. That is going to require the introduction of a universal entitlement to health care services underpinned in legislation, at no or low cost, and the removal of private activity from public hospitals. I am committed to doing this but it is a substantive body of work. That is why it is a ten-year plan.

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