Louise O'Reilly

Oh no, the contract was signed, so the contract should be enforced.

There's absolutely no dispute in that.

But that row is one that could be replicated in other areas.

This is not all about, you know, one or two consultants working in maternity.

There needs to be a root and branch examination.

And where someone has signed a public contract, they need to live up to the terms of that public contract.

But we also have to be honest when we have a conversation about if a consultant is working on a Saturday, or a nurse, or a journalist, or a politician...

If they're rostered to work for 40 hours a week and they're working on a Saturday, that's grand.

But somebody has to be covering the hours that they would normally work Monday through Friday.

So you're only going to get 40 hours or whatever the hours it is you're getting out of the consultant for their contract.

That's all you're getting.

So if you want more work done, you're going to need more people to do it.

And there's two ways of doing that.

One, you can recruit more consultants and we absolutely need to do that.

But you can also look at the model of care and look where innovation is being done.

And frequently you will find that's been done by therapists and nurses where they're driving that sort of community care.

So when we look at Sláinte Care, and I sat on the Sláinte Care Committee, we sat for a year, we looked in depth at the health service.

It is entirely possible using that roadmap to build a public, a really good public health model and a public health service.

But that needs commitment at all levels, not just commitment in the maternity area.

That needs commitment right across the board.