Funded by the GPs.

It is the GPs' obligation to provide these services. Nonetheless, I will revert to the Deputy on Fermoy as I did to Deputy Moynihan on Kanturk.

A lot of progress has been made. We have worked closely with the INMO. This year we sanctioned over 870 staff to fulfil safe staffing in every hospital in the country. It has been suggested we legislate for those issues. I have taken advice from Irish and international experts on safe staffing and Ireland is now seen as one of the leading countries in the world on safe staffing. The advice I have is that we are not at a point where legislation would help because it is such a new process and we are still learning an…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." As colleagues will be aware, when the Government was formed, I made it clear that we needed a revolution in women's healthcare. This Bill is another important step on that journey. It delivers on the commitment in the programme for Government and the long-standing commitment, first made in 2018, to provide for safe access zones. At its core, the Bill is about making sure women can access legally provided services safely and with privacy and dignity. It is about mak…

No.

As the Deputy is aware, the HSE is in the middle of the largest expansion in many years and part of the reason for the additional funds being drawn down by the HSE this year is that it is substantially ahead of its targets for treating patients. As we are all aware, there are some parts of this the HSE can control. One of the areas we are working very closely with it is on hospital operations. Funds were made available to hospitals for Covid measures, some of which have yet to be reversed out of the hospitals. We a…

I welcome this opportunity to address the House and thank the Deputies for tabling what is a largely sensible motion, bar one piece in it which does not make sense to me at all and which I will come to at the end. Broadly, however, I think the motion has been tabled in good faith and it is a very sensible motion. On that basis we will not oppose the motion. It is an important opportunity to debate these issues. As Minister for Health and a citizen of our Republic, I am deeply appreciative of the care services provi…

The motion-----

-----states clearly: "deliver and fund a collective pay agreement".

I did. With respect, I have just read it out.

We are not opposing the motion.

A great deal of progress is being made. While the Deputies should of course criticise the Government and hold us to account, as that is part of their job, let us not lose sight of the fact that there are highly sophisticated, well-capitalised, for-profit organisations involved in this that also deserve a certain level of scrutiny from us all.

Deputy Cullinane’s party did not allocate a single euro in its budget.

If we had implemented the Deputy's party's budget we would not have a 6% or 7%-----

Hear, hear.

I thank the Deputy for his supportive comments in terms of moving in this direction. I want to start by acknowledging the really extraordinary dedication our healthcare professionals have shown. To the Deputy's question, we have seen an unprecedented growth in that workforce. One of the things we must do, obviously, in moving from five to seven days is increase the workforce. As the Deputy will be aware, we have added nearly 21,000 additional healthcare professionals into our health and social care services since 2…

The answer is "Yes". There are informal discussions going on. It is something I discussed with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, when I was at its conference, and the chief executive and I raised it when we spoke at the Fórsa conference. Most importantly around this, the people I hear supporting this are the healthcare professionals themselves. They are fully aware that this is where we need to go. I had a meeting with emergency department consultants from around the country in the last two weeks. T…

Yes, it is. One of the big groups we will rely on to work in this way, for example, who typically are not on the five-seven contracts yet, are the health and social care professionals. My view is that as part of the upcoming round of pay talks, certainly from a health perspective, that is something at which we would be looking. To the Deputy's point, a lot of the workforce are already on these. Junior doctors and many nurses already have contracts like this. The new consultant contract moves from rostering 40 hours…

Yes. We are now looking at putting a formalised framework around this so that we can transition to this and that it becomes the norm.

I will start by acknowledging the enormous distress the overcrowded emergency departments are causing, first of all to patients and their families and second to our healthcare workers. I am regularly in emergency departments meeting with patients and their families and our healthcare workers. Part of the answer to the question lies in the discussion Deputy Cullinane and I just had. One of the things we must do is move to a seven-day service. We are all aware of the pattern in that the hospital gets cleared on Frida…