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

The idea is to manage COPD, diabetes, hypertension, heart failure, and other chronic illnesses in the community, insofar as is possible. If those diseases are well managed in the community, and they can be in the majority of cases, the number of hospital admissions will be very low. However, there will always be people who need specialist care and need to see a consultant or be admitted to hospital. It is absolutely wrong that there should be a major discrepancy in waiting times to see a specialist in one region of the country versus another, and that is not justifiable. Part of the reason for the move to regional health areas is to deal with this. We will establish regional health areas across the country and funding will be based on the population and medical needs of the people in those areas so that funding can be rebalanced in an appropriate way. That is something we need to work on in the next year or two.

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