Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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882. To ask the Minister for Health the estimated annual cost of introducing universal free hospital care, including the abolition of all inpatient, outpatient and accident and emergency charges. [34567/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Government’s on-going programme of health reform is intended to put in place the building blocks towards universal healthcare, where all people can access the health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while ensuring that the use of these services does not expose them to financial hardship.

These building blocks are all significant milestones on the road to universal healthcare and have the potential to drive performance improvement and deliver significant benefits in terms of timely access to high quality care.

The recently published report of the Committee on the Future of Healthcare, Sláintecare, has recommended the development of a universal single-tier public health system. As the Deputy is aware, the Committee has recommended the removal of a variety of user charges as part of its proposals in this regard.

I have welcomed the publication of the Committee’s report, which is the culmination of a year-long process of unprecedented cross-party collaboration, dialogue and engagement and is testament of the desire across the political spectrum and across the broader stakeholder community to work collaboratively to address the challenges in the health service. It is vital that we now allow time to reflect on the findings and recommendations of the Committee. To that end, I am currently developing a response to the report, which I hope to bring to Government quickly.