Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 July 2021
1882. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Health the estimated cost in 2022 and in a full year of fully implementing the Catherine Day report of the independent review group established to examine the role of voluntary organisations in publicly funded health and personal social services. [35698/21]
View answer2607. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Health his estimate of the cost in 2022 and in a full year of fully implementing the Catherine Day report of the Independent Review Group established to examine the role of voluntary organisations in publicly funded health and personal social services. [38359/21]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 1882 and 2607 together.
The Report of the Independent Review Group established to examine the role of voluntary organisations in publicly funded health and social services, published in February 2019, highlighted the important contribution that voluntary organisations have made and continue to make in the delivery of health and social care services across the country.
The key finding in the Report is the need to strengthen the relationship between the State and the voluntary sector. To this end, a Dialogue Forum with Voluntary Organisations was established in December 2019 as recommended in the Report as a key mechanism for strengthening this relationship. The aim of the Forum is to build a stronger working relationship between the State and the voluntary healthcare sector for the benefit of patients and service users and to facilitate regular dialogue with the voluntary sector on future policy and strategic developments. While the work of the Forum was paused due to the Covid-19 pandemic, full Forum meetings resumed in May this year and meetings took place in June and July also.
The Covid 19 crisis has brought into sharp relief both the hybrid nature of our health and social care system and the high level of mutual dependence of the statutory and voluntary sectors. NESC was commissioned by the Chair of the Forum to examine the lessons which can be learned from successful partnership working during the pandemic response. This Report, which was published in July, is now shaping the work of the Dialogue Forum.
To date, the focus of the Dialogue Forum has been on providing a space for dialogue between the statutory and voluntary sectors and as such no costs have been associated with the Forum’s work to date.
The IRG Report makes 24 recommendations covering areas such as the governance of voluntary organisations; dialogue, engagement and contractual processes between the State and the voluntary sector; ethos, asset ownership and public capital investment, and broader issues related to health system development.
These are aimed at the Department of Health, the HSE, other State Agencies and voluntary organisations themselves. Many of the IRG’s recommendations dovetail with the Sláintecare programme and are being considered in that context. In addition, some recommendations are being taken forward in the context of the Department of Rural and Community Development’s ‘Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities: A Five-Year Strategy to Support the Community and Voluntary Sector in Ireland 2019-2024’.
The IRG did not cost their recommendations and given the broad range of recommendations aimed at a number of actors and the fact that a number of recommendations are being considered as part of other processes, as outlined above, a specific costing exercise has not been undertaken.
