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Minister Harris Announces Agreement on Committee to develop 10-year Vision for Health

At its meeting today, the government agreed to support a motion establishing an all-party committee to devise cross-party agreement on a single long-term vision for health care and the direction of health policy in Ireland.

Speaking after the cabinet meeting, Minister Harris said:

One of the key proposals in the Programme for Government is the establishment of an Oireachtas Committee to develop cross-party consensus on the future of the health service.  I believe the health service would benefit enormously from a single unifying vision that we can all get behind and that can help to drive reform and development of the system over the next 10 years.

I am pleased that the Government has agreed to move ahead quickly to establish this committee and to get it up and running in the coming weeks.

I have been in discussion with Deputies from across the House, and I believe that we have now arrived at a motion that can attract broad support in the Dáil, and which the government is backing.  We will also allocate government time to debate the motion in the House.

I hope to table this motion in the near future, and to start the debate about how we can develop a single unifying vision for the future of healthcare.

Click here for the full text of the Motion.