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Health minister defends primary care 'new criteria'

The Health Minister James Reilly is standing over his decision to recommend the building of two primary care centres in his own constituency despite Junior Minister Róisín Shortall resigning over the issue on Wednesday night.

In the Dáil last night he defended the use of new criteria for selecting the centres.

In what turned out to be a low key affair, Reilly said that he makes no apologies for recommending that two primary care centres be built in his own constituency.

“I stand over the manner in which this was done and the criteria which I used.”

Shortall resigned claiming there was a lack of transparency in the way in which centres were selected.

But Reilly said he added the extra centres to the original list drawn up by the HSE using new criteria including GP to population ratio, and accessibility to public transport.

However, the explanation didn't satisfy Fianna Fáil's Billy Kelleher: “This does not have a transparent open process.”

Shortall's successor in the Department of Health, Alex White, will be approved by the cabinet on Tuesday.