Health Minister Leo Varadkar has admitted that free GP care for children under the age of six may not be introduced this year.

Speaking on RTE radio this morning, the Minister pointed out that legislation for this is already through and discussions are taking place with the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) on behalf of GPs.

However when asked if it would be introduced by the end of 2014, he said that he did not want to put a deadline on it.

"I can't say that for certain, it depends on the discussions with GPs," he commented.

Minister Varadkar also admitted that the HSE would not be scraped this year, as planned by former Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly.

"It is not going to be possible to scrap the HSE this year. You have to do things in a step-wise fashion and the first step in transforming the HSE from a commissioning agency to a service provision agency is to get the hospital groups up and running. That's the key reform at hospital level. We need to get that right and then move on to reforming the HSE itself," he insisted.

He noted that Minister Reilly's timeframe for reforms of the health service were ‘overambitious from the start'.

In relation to the overspend within the HSE this year, which amounts to €500 million, he said that this was partly due to a significant increase in the number of people using health services. For example, A&E figures were up by 3-4% and until last year, the birth rate was still rising.

When asked about manpower issues in the health service, Minister Varadkar acknowledged that some healthcare professionals were choosing to leave Ireland and take their expertise elsewhere. He said that this was partially due to salaries and partially due to working conditions.

"The Irish health service is a very difficult place to work in. I think some doctors and nurses feel that they spend a lot of their day apologising for delays and apologising for problems in the health service, rather than treating patients. Then they go somewhere like Australia where the health service works very well and they see things differently," he pointed out.

Meanwhile Minister Varadkar said he was waiting on a report from an expert group tasked with looking at whether medical cards should be issued to people on the basis of their medical condition, rather than their finances, which is currently the case.

He said that while it ‘makes sense' that a person's condition is taken into account, ‘how you do that is never going to be straightforward'.

He is expecting that report later this month.