I refer to the programme for Government commitment to look at a ten-year vision for our health service and to deliver a health service reform on the basis of it. The Joint Committee on the Future of Healthcare met for 11 months and produced the Sláintecare report. This is the first anniversary - 365 days - of the publication of the Sláintecare report and the Government has not yet delivered a response to that report. The response was to be delivered in December, in January, before Easter, after Easter, at the end of May and now by the end of June. The Government is deconstructing Sláintecare and reconstructing it in line with Government policy. The Sláintecare report, however, challenges Government policy. That was the whole purpose of the Sláintecare report.

Sláintecare has attracted international interest around how healthcare reform can be delivered in other countries but in Ireland we have not delivered a response to Sláintecare. There is no plan B. Sláintecare is the plan.

The Deputy must put a question.

The Government is losing the trust of the medical profession and the people. Are the HSE and the Department of Health the biggest vested interests in delivering a response? Is the Government deconstructing Sláintecare and reconstructing it according to the Government's own policy?

Will the Taoiseach be brief, please?

I assure the Deputy that Sláintecare is Government policy but it does require an implementation plan. It lacked such a plan and the Minister and the Government have been working on this for quite some time. I also assure Deputy Harty that the greatest vested interests in healthcare are not the HSE or the Department of Health. We can talk about this another time if the Deputy wishes.

In the absence of the implementation plan the Government has taken ten actions. The Sláintecare programme office has been established and a director will be appointed shortly. The legislation for the establishment of an independent board for the HSE, as recommended by Sláintecare, has the approval of the Government. The independent review called for by the Sláintecare report to look at separating private and public practice has been set up, is chaired by Donal de Buitléir and has started its work. The call by Sláintecare for the hospital groups and the CHOs to be aligned and for public consultation on the geographic alignment has commenced. We have published the health service capacity review that recommends the number of additional beds that are needed. Negotiations have commenced with GPs on a new contract. Prescription charges, as recommended by Sláintecare, have been reduced. Free GP care and medical cards have been extended.

The Taoiseach is out of time.

Project Ireland 2040 sets aside €10 billion for investment in healthcare, building, equipment and ICT. These are just ten examples of implementation that are happening.

I wish to follow up on Deputy Harty's question. The Health Reform Alliance had a press conference today on the calls by health and social care groups on the Government to publish the Sláintecare implementation plan, and to express the groups' frustration with Sláintecare's stagnation one year on. It has been recognised that some policies have been put forward, which the Taoiseach has named, but there is a big fear that it is being delivered piecemeal. Unless the implementation plan is brought to the Dáil for Members to discuss as a whole policy, there is a great fear that the Government is losing the medical profession with regard to the implementation of the Sláintecare plan as the only health policy in town.

Will the Taoiseach ensure that the implementation plan comes before the Dáil before the summer recess? One year on, we are still waiting for it. It is crucial that we see it as an overall plan and not a piecemeal plan. Mandate and the Communication Workers Union have endorsed Sláintecare, and if the implementation plan is not brought onto the floor of the Dáil, there will be calls for civil society to-----

I am sorry but if Deputies do not adhere to the one-minute speaking time, we will not get through the questions.

The Ceann Comhairle should say that to everyone.

The Sláintecare plan does not have an implementation plan. It is being developed by the Minister for Health and the Government. We have taken ten concrete actions already to implement it.

Both of the Deputies are a little bit naive about losing the support and confidence of the medical profession. There are many members of the medical profession who are not very enthusiastic about separating public and private practice but we have set up the Donal de Buitléir review to do exactly that.

That is allowed to happen in a vacuum.

The Deputy has made her point.

There are many in the medical profession who are not very supportive of the proposal to extend free GP care to an extra 250,000 people per year. People are very naive if they think that the medical profession is fully behind this because it is not.