Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Whatever about my future, I am sure the Deputy will be here continuing to make a positive contribution. I assure him that I fully agree with some of the latter end of his contribution because he and the other members of the Sláintecare committee having rightly been putting pressure on the Government to deliver multi-annual funding. If we think we are going to fix the challenges of the health service and bring about Sláintecare by just looking budget to budget, we will fail. That is why one of my biggest asks of the Minister for Finance in budget 2020 was to give me multi-annual funding for Sláintecare. Last year, I succeeded in getting multi-annual funding for the GP contract, which is making that decisive shift and has been accepted by 95% of GPs. My big multi-annual ask this year was for €60 million in a full year. It is not the never-never. As the Deputy is well aware, the recruitment process will mean that all 1,000 posts can be filled by 31 December. We will have 1,000 people there and the full year pay bill for that will be €60 million. If I did not get that full-year cost, the Deputy's criticism would be entirely correct but I have now been able to give Paul Reid, the CEO of the HSE, the certainty that on 31 December 2020, he can have 1,000 additional speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, public health nurses and others on his pay bill for the HSE. That will make a real difference and a decisive shift. The GP contract is already making that decisive shift with more patients, starting with older people, getting appointments with their GPs instead of having to trek to hospital. We must make community and primary care busier, which is what the investment is about.

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