Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We need to be very careful in respect of Northern Ireland at present. It is a time for cool heads and calmness. There is a problem in that we do not have an Assembly. We have a group representing the entire population of Northern Ireland in the House of Commons that has the support of about 36% of the population. There is another 64% that is not represented there. We really do not know where we are going in respect of Brexit and how it will affect Northern Ireland. It is a very difficult time. We need to be very careful about how we deal with it. There have been set-backs in the past after which progress was made. Hopefully, over the next six to eight months, we will see some real progress on all sides. There has to be some movement by the people who are purporting to represent all of Northern Ireland in the House of Commons. It needs to be very carefully managed from the point of view of the entire island of Ireland. I might have had my disagreements with Sinn Féin previously but I believe that it made substantial concessions and tried to bring about a solution to this problem. Let us not play the blame game at this time.

My colleague raised a matter in respect of the Taoiseach and I think his comments were taken out of context. I have been very much to the forefront of the general practitioner contract negotiations. I have been consistently meeting and discussing the issues with the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, and the National Association of General Practitioners, NAGP. We need to make progress on this matter and it needs to be fast-tracked. I have dealt with this within my own party and will continue to deal with it. I assure the House that serious efforts are being made to bring all sides together in order that we can progress the negotiations on this matter. Over the next three to four weeks, I hope that substantial progress will be made. We need a new contract for GPs and we need to give them the support they deserve. A very interesting figure was highlighted at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health yesterday. The cost of funding St. James's Hospital for 12 months is €864 million. That is exactly the same amount of money that is paid out to cover the cost of supporting GPs. This is an issue that needs to be given priority. We need to give priority to the people on the front line. Finally, I am a little disappointed with the way the HSE has used funding. There are now 2,600 more people working in administration and management in the HSE than was the case in December 2014. This is at a time when the issue in respect of front-line staff is not being given the same priority.