With regard to the primary care Bill and GP cards, Deputy Martin will have heard the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy White, confirm that the moneys allocated for last year and this year are in situ.

He wants to look at the entire scheme rather than just do one section of it now and then have to put in administrative, legal and medical personnel to deal with that. His timescale is five to six weeks and I hope then that the first section can start rolling out and that we will be able to continue on from that seamlessly, as it were.

We need legislative change.

Yes.

My point is that in the programme for Government two and a half years ago, this big Bill was put up front, that is, the universal primary care Bill. Had the person responsible for putting that into the programme for Government had a bull's notion about what it involved in terms of detail, substance and complexity, he or she would not have put it in. We have been told in the past two weeks, as the Taoiseach knows, that it is enormously complex and that there are all sorts of legal difficulties and obstacles.

Thank you, Deputy.

Clearly whoever put this into the programme for Government was not aware of any difficulties at the time. Are we looking at a reform of the programme for Government commitment to such an Act? Clearly, that Act cannot happen this year. The Minister of State, Deputy White, has inherited this mess from the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly. The former Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Shortall, was shafted over it and let hang out to dry by the Government. The question remains as to whether the Bill is real. Is that term in the programme for Government-----

We cannot go into the detail of legislation on the Order of Business.

On the universal primary care Bill, does anyone know what the substance of it would be? Is that Bill gone by the wayside? Will a new Bill be introduced? What is the situation in this regard?

This is the responsibility of the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy White. He has pointed out that, having looked at the structure he had to deal with on his appointment, he decided that he would prefer to look at this scheme in its entirety and then start the process rather than do it in sections. The latter approach would require the setting up of particular administrative operations, a legal base and medical personnel, which would have to be duplicated repeatedly before we would get an effective system.

Did the Government not know that two years ago?

He wants to look at the entire scheme. He has his money in place and I hope that when he reports back in five to six weeks, he can actually commence that.