Results 20,121-20,140 of 45,789 for speaker:Simon Harris

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: My understanding is - I may have to revert to the Deputy if my HSE colleagues do not have any more information on this - Freestyle Libra is already available to certain kinds of-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: We will check that for the Deputy and come back to her directly.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: My understanding is that this is currently with the HSE leadership team.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: I will ask the Secretary General to come in on a few of the issues raised by the Senator but will make a few comments first. I listened to the former Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, talking about this on the radio last weekend. He spoke about the huge volume of work that he and his Ministers did in his time, in terms of the discussion about the need for a children's hospital, what other...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: Senator Colm Burke talks about the overturn. I need to refer to it as a projected overrun because we have just asked PwC to come back to how we can rein in the costs. I want members and, most importantly, taxpayers, to know that trying to rein the costs is now what needs to happen. That is why I have asked Mr. Fred Barry, with his expertise, to take up a role. It is also why I have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: There are many sick children from Cork today in Crumlin and Temple Street hospitals. It is a project for the country that has to be located somewhere and happens to be located in Dublin. As for the elective-only hospitals, a significant body of work is being done in my Department on deciding what these will do and deciding the policy framework. I visited Scotland not that long ago to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: I hear the Senator. We will have that engagement within four weeks.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy O'Connell for raising these important matters. I will take them sequentially. Like the Deputy, I am extremely disturbed that there is an attempt by some, despite a referendum and the legislation, still to think it is in some way acceptable to treat termination of pregnancy services differently from other legally authorised services in the Irish health service. We will not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: Otherwise, I would have to disagree with the Deputy.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: No. The public does not agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett if one actually asks people who use the health service, rather than Deputy Boyd Barrett who thinks that everything my party touches is a crisis because he has a funny political ideology that I do not agree with but to which he is entitled to believe. If one asks patients who spent a night in a hospital last year or the year before how...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: -----the Deputy about the health service. That is my first point. The second point, which never gets discussed here bizarrely, is that people measure the health service through a very limited prism. I accept there are access challenges in respect of getting into the health service. That is a valid and fair criticism but if one looks at survival rates for cancer, for strokes, for heart...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: On some of the industrial relations issues, there are ways of resolving these things but they have to be resolved within the confines of the public service stability agreement because that is the agreement we have with all unions through ICTU. We have not had a chance to discuss these today but perhaps we will at some point because there is still an industrial relations dispute with 40,000...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: First, no one is batting anything away. By my estimation, I am into approximately six and a half hours of questioning about the national children's hospital. I did three and a half hours last week and we are now into approximately three hours this week. We will be here for as long as committee members want.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: I am sorry to keep the Deputy. He has asked me a series of questions and made a series of assertions. He might read the answers.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: As I said, we are six and a half hours in and no one is batting anything away. We will be here all day and will answer every question. We will stay for as long as members want to discuss the matter. There is a view which is not confined to my party or the Government, of which I am a member. It is shared across the Oireachtas. It is that getting in some external expertise, such is the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: We will publish the report. For the record, the HSE appointed the company and commissioned the report. It would have followed due process in respect of there being a conflict of interest, the procurement process and the like. Deputy Boyd Barrett asked a series of questions about procurement. I am not suggesting they are not valid, but there would be serious concerns if they were...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: I am happy to give that commitment which I gave to the Deputy in writing, but I am happy to give it at this committee. I have been dealing in a bi-partisan manner with all Oireachtas Members from Waterford, as the Deputy is aware. He has also been operating in that way. This project will proceed. It is very important and we have had numerous discussions on it. It affects not only...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: I became Minister for Health in May 2016 and would have started-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: I accept I was Minister for Health and would have started engaging with the Children's Hospital Group. I will have to check and revert to the Deputy. I have no recollection of that but I will check. I recall that there was a discussion and debates in the Oireachtas about the merits and importance of the project and getting out information about the clinical benefits but I do not understand...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (6 Feb 2019)

Simon Harris: I take as noted Deputy Brassil's comments on the nurses' dispute. We will have an opportunity to debate that in the morning but I hope that between now and then, there will be a continued effort to get this back into some formal engagement because that is the only place where it will be resolved. The floor of the Dáil is a perfectly appropriate place to discuss it but it is not going...