Bradford seeks incentives for primary care centres
Thursday March 11 2010
The Department of Finance should make a degree of financial provision by way of tax relief, to support the introduction of primary care centres, Fine Gael Senator Paul Bradford told the Upper House.
Speaking on an adjournment debate, he said his understanding was that while the HSE aspires to having over 200 such centres throughout the country, plans for approximately 100 such projects were being worked on and considered for construction. Therefore, questions of finance and incentives must now be considered.
"We have to recognise that in today's economic environment the construction of these centres would be a major financial burden on all concerned," he said. "We are not seeking grant aid or money from the State, rather we are seeking incentives to allow projects to progress which would be controlled and managed by GPs. If we can get these development projects up and running, a huge number of people will be employed during the construction phase of these 100 to 200 centres."
In the context of the Finance Bill, he hoped the Minister of State for Health John Moloney could liaise with the Minister and the Department of Finance to try to kick-start the projects.
In response, Minister Moloney said the HSE planned to have 530 primary care teams and 134 primary care and social networks developed by 2011. Additional funding of €52 million in total had been provided for the HSE since 2002 for the development of primary care teams.
"At the end of 2009, 222 teams were operating, which is defined as holding clinical team meetings on individual client cases and involving GPs and HSE staff," he said.
Tax-based incentives were a matter for the Minister for Finance in the first instance in designing the annual Finance Bill for Government and Oireachtas approval, he said.
The Ministers for Health and Children and Finance would have their respective Departments assess the recommendations of the joint committee. The matter would be considered in the context of the Government's strong backing for the development of primary health care services and the best available means to support them.
