Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

More than four years ago, Sláintecare promised "a universal single tier service where patients are treated on the basis of health need rather than on ability to pay". Where are we today? We have a further embedded and deeply unequal two-tier system, the weaknesses of which were badly exposed by the pandemic. There are almost 1 million people on hospital waiting lists. Hospital staff are overworked and underpaid and significant amounts of public money are ending up in the private healthcare system through, for example, the National Treatment Purchase Fund. There were the resignations of Laura Magahy and Tom Keane from the Sláintecare implementation advisory council and that of Professor Geraldine McCarthy, chair of the board of the South/Southwest Hospital Group. In her resignation letter, she wrote:

I have waited for a long time for developments led by successive ministers for health and government. However, recent information and my own experiences tell me we are no nearer to the required reform than we were six years ago.

Is the Government actually committed to what is in Sláintecare or is it just politically expedient to say it agrees with it?

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