Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

Does the Leader accept that the cornerstone of the primary health care strategy which the Government published in 2001 was a proposal by the then Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, to establish 24-hour general practitioner co-operatives across the country? The co-operatives were termed "primary health care centres". The commitment to establish 600 such centres over the ten years between 2001 and 2010 was underwritten by a commitment to spend €1 billion in the same period on their establishment. We have seen ten pilot projects in five years, only one of which — at Virginia in County Cavan — is up and running. How stands the Tánaiste's latest ten-point plan to deal with the crisis in the accident and emergency sector given that Deputy Martin committed the Government to action over ten years? The plan represents further Government spin on the issue.

There are 400 people on trolleys in acute hospitals across the country this morning despite the Government's 2001 commitment. The primary problem at accident and emergency level is the number of people accessing departments, many of whom have minor ailments which could be addressed through 24-hour general practitioner cover. Does the Government's 2001 commitment to the provision of 600 primary care centres stand? We are halfway through the period in which the strategy was to be implemented but these centres do not yet exist. The Government seems to blame doctors, nurses and those generous benefactors who want to provide money to the acute care sector while doing very little itself to spend money and provide the health care facilities needed to get people off trolleys and into the hospital system proper. I ask the Leader to clarify which policy is in place. Is it Deputy Martin's 2001 policy or the Tánaiste's plan?