The Minister for Health says plans for Universal Health Insurance by the end of this decade are "too ambitious".

Leo Varadkar says he wants to focus on providing free GP care instead - and doesn't want to force new bills on people who can't afford to pay them.

He's also warned that the health system simply can't afford to deal with any more cuts to its budget.

He says he only has a limited time in the job - and says a major plan like universal health insurance can't be introduced overnight.

"That's something that I think we need to do carefully, in a step-wise manner," the new minister said.

"If we do it too quickly, we'll overwhelm the existing system, which doesn't have the capacity yet to deal with it.

"And also, we don't want to impose new bills and new charges on people who really can't take any more.

"So what I want to do is to prioritise universal GP care first."

The new minister has also set out his stall for the Budget, by saying the health service simply cannot sustain any more cuts to its funding.

He says the cuts to the health service in last year's Budget - totalling €666 million - cannot be implemented without fundamentally compromising services, and is proof that further demands to cut the health budget can't be achieved.

Our political correspondent Gavan Reilly filed this report for Today FM's National Lunchtime News: