Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. The national review of adult specialist cardiac services is finalised and I have received the report. I do not have the date but I have received it and I will move to publish it very shortly. I want to bring it to Government. It is a very good and comprehensive report. One of the reasons I did not publish it right away was I did not want to publish a review that did not have any money behind it.

The report makes a lot of recommendations. Additional funding for cardiovascular services is required. I wanted to wait to make sure I had money to back all of this up. That is what the budget was about in this particular area. As the Deputy will be aware, we put a big focus in the budget on cardiovascular disease, which is still one of the biggest killers in the country. Unlike cancer care, women's healthcare and other areas, it has not had the strategic investment, with a plan, that it badly needs. This week I have put a cardiovascular health package together in the budget, with an allocation of €8 million. This includes €600,000 for the all-island congenital heart disease network; €4 million for 45 posts for the first year of the review so we can get on and hire the extra cardiologists and put the extra services in place; and €4 million to support the expansion of early supported discharge teams and, critically, access to acute stroke units, so the stroke strategy has been funded as well. I have also allocated a €600,000 investment in the Irish Heart Foundation to support two fantastic programmes it runs. In addition, from next year onwards, the GP chronic disease management programme will expand to cover three different areas of cardiology.

It national review is a good review. It is not an implementation plan so we will pull the cardiologists together now and tell them that we will have several million euro of permanent funding and ask what is the best way to begin to deploy it.

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