Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Butler for her fair and constructive remarks. I also thank her and all the Members of the Oireachtas from Waterford for not playing politics with an issue that we all agree is far more important than party politics. It is about showing that people can work together, regardless of party affiliation, to try to move forward in a constructive way. Deputy Butler spoke about the importance of clinical and medical evidence. That is important because we can only design a health service on that basis, not political decision making. For that reason, all parties in the House subscribing to the idea of a national review with an independent international expert and clear terms of reference is very important. It is important to have an international expert as that will add significantly to the national review.

To be absolutely clear, the additional resources which I have already announced for University Hospital Waterford will remain in place. There is a benefit to that in the immediate term through additional opening hours, extra staff, more procedures being carried out and the mobile catheterisation laboratory ensuring that elective procedure waiting times in the south east can be driven down further. We have made some progress on that in recent months and more will be made with the mobile catheterisation laboratory. I will continue to engage with my colleagues from the south east as we move towards the establishment of this national review, which hopefully will benefit all our citizens in all the regions as we try to plan the best possible primary PCI services to deliver standards that we can all be proud of and that are internationally benchmarked.

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