Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 23 Jun 2010

Vol. 713 No. 2

Health (Amendment) Bill 2010: Committee and Remaining Stages

Before I move the amendment, will the Ceann Comhairle clarify if this will continue until 5.30 p.m. or 7 p.m.?

It will continue until 5.30 p.m.

Are we going straight from Committee Stage to Report Stage?

Yes. We are doing Committee and Remaining Stages.

We will not have an opportunity to submit Report Stage amendments unless we do so on the hoof.

The Deputy will have an opportunity if we finish Committee Stage before 5.30 p.m.

That does not sound very much like a window of opportunity to me.

It is 3.50 p.m. now, so we have some time.

I will keep talking because we want to get through as much as we possibly can.

SECTION 1

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, after line 32, to insert the following:

"(i) any such occurrence of development that is likely to give rise to a significant risk to public health,".

Any such occurrence of development that is likely to give rise to a significant risk to public health should be included in the information required of the HSE. It should be the duty of the HSE to furnish such information.

Most of us have spoken specifically about the context of the review group looking into the deaths of children in care but the scope of this legislation is much broader. It relates to any inquiry being carried out and the duties of the HSE to supply information to whoever is carrying out the inquiry and, indeed, to the Minister, so it goes beyond inquiries.

There are certain instances where the Minister will request information or where it is the opinion of the executive that the Minister would consider certain information significant to the performance of his or her functions. We should also include this other category of information which is likely to cause significant risk to public health.

In some ways, it is self-explanatory. I would have thought it would have been something with which the Minister would not have had a problem in so far as it would be in the public interest that the HSE would inform the Minister of any information which is likely to give rise to a risk to public health.

Section 40B states that the executive shall monitor and keep under review occurrences and developments concerning matters relating to its object and functions, as Deputy O'Sullivan said. It is a much broader remit than the specific attempt by the Bill to enable the independent review group to receive information via the Minister from the executive. It also provides that, without delay, it shall furnish the Minister with information regarding any such occurrence or development that, in the opinion of the executive, the Minister is likely to consider significant for the performance of his or her functions and as such the section has been very widely framed in order to capture all significant occurrences across the health system rather than having an exhaustive list in the legislation. For example, one could be dealing with patient safety, primary care or public health, as Deputy O'Sullivan suggested in the amendment, which states: "any such occurrence of development that is likely to give rise to a significant risk to public health."

Accordingly, acceptance of the amendment, while desirable in its own right, would simply raise the question of the need to specify more specific areas with the result that it might be inferred that any area not specified was not of significance. I am happy that the text in section 40B(1)(ii) provides for the eventualities the Deputy's amendment proposes to capture in an appropriate manner and, therefore, I am not disposed towards accepting the amendment.

There are more important areas in this legislation which we need to discuss, so I do not want to spend too much time on this one. It would be helpful and would add to the Bill if this was specifically included. I understand the Minister of State's point that the wording in section 40B(1) is very general and it can include risk to public health.

I will not press the amendment on the basis that this is a wide element of the legislation and we want to spend as much time as possible on the areas of particular concern.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4 are related and may be discussed together.

To be helpful, I suggest we discuss amendment No. 4a as well because it is a related amendment. It would save duplication. Amendment No. 4a is on the additional list circulated. I think it would make sense.

Is that agreed? Agreed. Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 4a will be discussed together.

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 4, line 14, to delete "guidelines" and substitute "directions".

I do not have any difficulty with Deputy Shatter's amendment. My amendment proposes to tighten up the Minister's powers in regard to the furnishing of information and regular reporting of information by the HSE. Amendment No. 2 proposes to use the term "directions" rather than "guidelines" because it is essential a Minister or Minister of State uses his or her political power in regard to these matters. The term "guidelines" may or may not be implemented but the term "directions" is much more definite in regard to the power of the Minister.

We really should not have to do this. The Minister should be able to get whatever information he or she requires in the interests of the public from the executive which is meant to implement the policy direction of the Minister. In a sense, it is quite farcical that we must introduce legislation to give a Minister of Government the power to tell an executive, which the Government has set up to implement its policies, that it must give certain information and provide certain documents to the Minister who, in turn, can pass them on to an expert group. It is really farcical in a democracy that we have to do this. We should use much tighter language in terms of the powers of the Minister. That is why I propose the term "directions" rather than "guidelines".

Amendment No. 4 also proposes the term "directions" rather than "guidelines" while amendment No. 3 inserts the following: "including as to the timing, manner and content of the furnishing of such information." It extends the power of the Minister to require regular reporting and to identify the way the Minister wants this information to be reported. Essentially, it gives the power to the Minister rather than leaving it in the hands of the HSE.

Unfortunately, the Minister for Health and Children constantly hides behind the HSE in terms of answering questions and taking responsibility for the debacles which happen in the health service. When something goes wrong we are told it is not a matter for the Minister but for the HSE. Similarly, we still get answers to parliamentary questions stating that the Minister cannot answer them and that the questions have been referred to the HSE.

If we can redress in this legislation the power relationship between the Minister for Health and Children and the HSE, then we will be doing a good day's work. However, when it comes to such important matters as files relating to the deaths of children being handed over to an independent review group which has been given the job of producing a report and recommendations, then it is vital that the Minister is as powerful and strong as possible in terms of his or her relationship with the HSE. It must be a relationship in which the Minister is the dominant person, not the HSE.

These are important amendments and this particular section with which we are dealing, which is the new section 40B to go into the Health Act 2004, is very important because it starkly illustrates the disconnect between the Minister for Health and Children, the Ministers of State in that Department, the Department itself and the HSE.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan is absolutely right that, as other speakers have also said, it is quite ludicrous that in circumstances of a constitutional democracy, where there is a Minister responsible to this House for our health services, that special emergency legislation — this is what this is — needs to be enacted to compel the HSE to simply keep the Minister informed of important developments in the health service and in the child care services.

It is quite extraordinary that we have in government a Minister for Health and Children who steered the legislation which established the HSE and who has been intentionally blind to the defects in that legislation for five years. Frankly, and I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State for whom I have a great deal of time, despite the difficulties I give him on occasion, we have a senior Minister who has so little respect for the Dáil that she is not present for this Bill, which is not just about children. It is about the political and accountability disconnect between the Minister and a quango, the HSE, which was deliberately established to immunise government from responsibility for things that go wrong.

With regard to Deputy O'Sullivan's amendments, I can sympathise with her wish to replace the word "guidelines" with the word "direction". Initially, it was my view that we should do that as well because I am conscious, as I have no doubt the Minister of State is, that we have the Children First child protection "guidelines", which he never fails to tell us are robust. However, they are only as robust as they are implemented. They have been in place since 1999 but they are still not implemented and applied by the HSE. The executive has an appallingly scandalous and catastrophic record of failure to implement guidelines. It is a consequence of its failure to do so that so many children in the care system died, particularly those who did not die from natural causes, and so many children about whom many concerns were expressed died. If the child protection guidelines had been uniformly applied and properly followed, many of the children who are now the subject of the inquiry by the review group might still be alive.

The guidelines produced about child protection services, despite my calling for them to be made statutory many years ago, have never been anything other than a wish list from the Department of principles and approaches to be applied in protecting children. A statutory obligation was never imposed to comply with the guidelines. Where subsection (2) in the new section 40(B) differs is a statutory obligation is imposed on the Executive. It states: "The Minister may issue guidelines in relation to the furnishing of information under subsection (1) and, if he or she does so, the Executive shall comply with those guidelines". The nature of the statutory obligation is that which should long ago have applied to the child protection guidelines and I presume this will feature in the legislation promised before the end of the year in regard to them. I am not sure whether it makes any difference whether they are called "directions" or "guidelines" because what is important is there is a statutory obligation to comply with them.

What happens if the Executive fails to fulfil its statutory obligation and fails to comply? This is one of the lacunas in the Bill. If the Minister issues guidelines and the HSE fails to comply with them, what happens next? There is nothing in the Bill to indicate what happens next. Will people lose their jobs? It is highly unlikely based on the many scandalous failures within the HSE, which, to date, have not resulted in anyone being rendered unemployed. Will a fine be imposed on the HSE? Will the person or individuals who did not comply with the guidelines be the subject of inquiry? Will there be a statutory process? This is one of the many reasons this Bill is flawed.

This is a well intended provision. It is an outrage that we enacted legislation to create the HSE without these obligations being imposed on it but there is no point in saying someone is obliged to do something if there is no sanction if he or she fails to do it and no procedure to come to terms with such failure. If guidelines are not complied with, there is not even a guarantee that anyone will ever be told because there is no provision in the Bill for publication of the guidelines. We will not know when guidelines have issued or what their content is and no member of the House or the public will have a reason to know whether there has been a failure to comply with them unless there is another catastrophic revelation of that failure having a serious impact on the lives of one or more individuals. There is no transparency in this and that is another defect. This is not an issue about which one needs confidentiality. If there are guidelines about the furnishing of the type of information specified in the legislation, which relates to occurrences and developments in the health service of importance and of public interest and in the child care services, at the very minimum, they should be published and, for example, if they are breached and if we had time to do it in the context of this legislation, there should be an annual report to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children and it should be laid before this House detailing the areas in which the HSE in any particular year failed to comply with guidelines issued. This would bring transparency but that is not in the Bill.

Amendment No. 4a seeks to insert two subsections following section 40B(2). The first states: “(3) Any guidelines issued by the Minister pursuant to this section shall be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas upon issuing and shall be the subject of debate in each House and amenable to amendment by a motion passed in each House within 3 months of being so laid”. That would bring transparency to the guidelines. It would ensure their publication and that Members have an input into them. I assume they will be carefully prepared by the Minister for Health and Children or her successor and most times will be simply accepted in the House. However, there may be occasions that Members could valuably contribute to beefing them up and that should be open in a parliamentary democracy to some form of discussion in the national Parliament because this relates to the running of our health service. The guidelines are principles to be applied by the HSE.

I believe it is reasonable that the guidelines be published and laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas in order that Members of both Houses have an opportunity to propose amendments, which the Government of the day may accept depending on the nature of the amendments proposed. That would be to the advantage of the Minister. It is important that what is in these guidelines is publicly known. For example, to whom will the Minister give the guidelines? Will they simply go to Professor Brendan Drumm and be put in a drawer in his office or will they go to his successor? How widely will they be distributed within the HSE? Will they go to middle management? Will they go to every employee of the HSE? Will all the medical, nursing, social services and other personnel working within the executive be furnished with copies of the guidelines in order that if there is an occurrence of importance about which the Minister should be informed within their area of responsibility, that is communicated to someone in an appropriate management position in the HSE for communication to the Minister? How will he or she ever know whether proper communication is operating in this context? What will be the line of communication? We know that, within the HSE, communications are seriously dysfunctional.

I say this because, in principle, I welcome the legislation, but I want it to be more than just decoration and headlines. I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to accepting amendment No. 4a, which would result in the addition of subsections (3) and (4) to section 40B of the principal Act. The proposed subsection (4) states: “Any specification by the Minister in respect of an occurrence or development pursuant to subsection (1)(b)(ii) herein shall be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas by the Minister within 7 days of being furnished to the Executive.”

The current section 40B(2) makes provision for requiring the HSE not only to monitor and keep under review occurrences and developments concerning matters relating to its objects and functions, which are basically to provide a health service and a child care service, but also to furnish the Minister with information without delay. It also allows the Minister to obtain information regarding any other occurrence or development that falls within a class of occurrences or developments of public interest or concern that have been specified in writing by the Minister.

There are two routes here: the Minister publishes guidelines with which the HSE has an obligation to comply — although, if it fails to do so, it does not appear to me that a whole heap happens — and, if there are other occurrences or developments that could be of public interest or concern, the Minister can specify these to the HSE to require, essentially, that she be kept up to date with what is going on. Under my second amendment, any such specifications should be laid before both Houses. In other words, there should be transparency, with the Minister making known to the general public and elected Members of both Houses the matters of concern about which she has asked to be kept informed.

This Bill entirely lacks such transparency. That is another reason it is defective. It should be about more than private communications between the HSE and the Minister; it should provide for people to be kept informed and for the Minister to be facilitated with regard to political accountability to the House. This is the ideal expressed for the Bill in the explanatory memorandum, which states: "The purpose of the Bill is to strengthen the legislative base for the provision of information by the Health Service Executive to the Minister for Health and Children so as to enhance the Minister's ability to fulfil his or her role and functions (including political accountability to the Oireachtas) and to create a ‘safe channel of communication' for sensitive information between the HSE and the Minister." However, nowhere in the Bill are the words "political accountability" used. Political accountability means that the Minister has an obligation to tell Members of the House — and, through Members, the general public — about events that have occurred that are of concern and about information that has been sought from the HSE.

I promise I will not speak at such length on other issues, but this is a fundamental aspect of the Bill, which I believe is well intentioned. However, no matter what work is being done behind the scenes, this Bill has been rushed out with the ultimate intention of forcing the HSE to keep the Minister and her colleagues in Government informed about what is going on in the health and child care services. With all the disasters over which this Government and its predecessor have presided, the one lesson it has taken five years to learn is that the HSE does not keep Ministers informed about what is happening in the health and child care services; that, far too frequently, issues the Government believes are being addressed are not; and that disasters that occur are often concealed from the Government. This is a direct consequence of the catastrophic failure to ensure proper lines of communication and accountability when the legislation was first enacted in 2004 to create the HSE.

A number of matters were raised with regard to the four amendments under discussion. Deputy O'Sullivan began by saying that none of this should be necessary, and there is a grain of truth in that. It should not be necessary to extract information from an agency of the State under any circumstances. However, in the case of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, it was clearly required that we create a statutory obligation for a person — in that case the Garda Commissioner — to provide information to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The HSE is required to keep the Minister informed of matters under the Health Act 2004. What this Bill attempts to do is to create a much stronger obligation on the HSE to do this. The human condition being what it is — all of us are human — such measures are sometimes required.

It is essential to ensure that all staff in the biggest organisation in the State are aware of their obligations to keep the Minister for Health and Children and me informed; in turn, we can keep the Oireachtas informed. The core purpose of this is to improve the accountability of the HSE to the Minister and of the Minister to the Oireachtas. Having said that, it is impossible for the Minister to micro-manage the daily affairs of the HSE, although I am not suggesting this is being proposed by either speaker.

The issue of the Tallaght X-ray cases which arose in March came to media attention through a whistleblower who himself said that no blame could possibly attach to the Minister in these circumstances, although the political system and the media, as its camp followers, tried to implicate her. Fine Gael's own deputy leader — sorry, I am getting ahead of myself; I meant to say leader — described these events at the time as a national catastrophe. I remember him using those words, but it has not been spoken of since. The average national catastrophe usually has a news cycle of longer than one week. However, that is the standard of terminology under which events are described as scandalous or catastrophic — words that easily trip off the tongue.

We must be clear that we are dealing with a large organisation that works with the most vulnerable people, those who are sick and those who have disabilities. It has a staff of more than 100,000. The criticism that goes with running such an organisation and trying to ensure accountability must be borne by anybody involved in it, but there must be a change in the terminology that is sometimes used if we want to be fair, honest and generous about the attempts that are being made to improve things.

It was not me who stated that the Children First guidelines were robust. The review conducted by Helen Buckley in 2008 concluded that they were robust. It was the Deputy's position at that time that mandatory reporting should be introduced. Obviously, when the evidence changes, one is entitled to change one's mind, but now everyone accepts that the proper way to proceed is to put those guidelines on a statutory footing, and that is what I intend to do.

Subsection (2) of section 40B is intended to ensure the Minister can, if she wishes, give guidance on how the HSE is to provide information. This includes the manner of provision and the content of the information, as is proposed by Deputy O'Sullivan in amendment No. 3. Subsection (1) of section 40B imposes a duty on the HSE to provide information of the type specified in the subsection to the Minister without delay. The purpose of subsection (2), therefore, is not to direct that such information be provided, since the substantive requirement is contained in subsection (1).

The provision is intended to ensure flexibility, so that the information required is provided in a way that best meets the needs of the Minister. Accordingly, "guidelines" rather than "directions" is considered appropriate. In any event, any guidelines must be complied with. As Deputy Shatter mentioned, the issue is ultimately one of terminology and it probably makes no difference.

On the question of timing, the section already requires that the information is to be provided without delay as set out in section 40C(1). I am, therefore, satisfied that the current text meets the concerns of Deputy Jan O'Sullivan in that regard.

With regard to amendment No. 4a, Deputy Shatter suggested that the guidelines issued about class of occurrences and development in any guidelines that may be issued under section 40B(2) should be subject to Oireachtas scrutiny. I disagree because these provisions are intended to give the necessary flexibility to the Minister to ensure the HSE is quite clear on the nature and type of information she requires under section 40B. They are not, therefore, the same as directions under section 10 of the Health Act 2004, which requires a copy of any directions to be laid before both Houses. In any case, all of these documents are available under freedom of information legislation. Deputy Shatter, in spite of the cost——

It is an expensive exercise.

I agree it can be an expensive exercise but it will be a single document so it might be just over €20 and I will certainly try to assist him in that regard if there are any difficulties. These documents are available under freedom of information as long as they do not belong in a certain category of documents which are not available under freedom of information for whatever reason.

Why not just publish them?

They may be part of the deliberative process and that is why so many documents are not put in the public domain on a daily basis. While one might genuflect at the altar of transparency too easily, one can do that at the cost of having frank and proper deliberation of important issues of Government and the development of public policy in a way that can be restricted by freedom of information from time to time. This is the basic principle of Cabinet confidentiality. If it were to be held in a Big Brother scenario where everyone could watch the proceedings, there might not be the proper exchanges one would expect in those circumstances.

The question was asked about what sanctions exist. Ultimately, the purpose of the mandatory duty to comply is to try to improve the quality and timing of the information provided by the HSE to the Minister. Ultimately, there is a sanction which is that a board may be removed under section 14 of the Health Act, but one would hope that this would not be required too often. The general purpose of this section is to improve the general culture of the transposition of information to the Minister and, in turn, to the Oireachtas, in order to improve accountability. For those reasons I do not intend to accept these amendments.

I cannot help thinking of the reasons Ms Justice Laffoy resigned from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and was replaced by Mr. Justice Ryan. She could not get information out of the Department of Education and Science even though this was a statutory commission of inquiry. She was so frustrated with the difficulties in getting the information she needed that she decided she needed to resign and she did this publicly. It is all very well to establish a culture with regard to the transfer of information but it is important that the language is very precise with regard to what is required. This is the reason I am looking for the word, "direction" rather than "guidelines" and I am looking for the power to be given to the Minister to specify the timing and manner and content of the furnishing of the information.

The phrase "as soon as possible" might sound reasonable to anybody in normal circumstances but it can also be an excuse for not furnishing information and saying it is not possible to furnish it within a certain timeframe. We need to word this section as tightly as possible to ensure that the information required is given, is handed to the Minister and subsequently to the independent review group. From experiences like the one I have cited with regard to the Laffoy commission, there is a danger that such a large organisation, and particularly in the area of child protection because of the shortage of social workers, is under all kinds of pressure to do all kinds of things and might decide it is not possible to provide this information all that quickly. It might decide these are only guidelines so therefore it will just provide a certain amount of information. It might consider these are only guidelines on what it needs to do rather than being statutory requirements.

We are framing legislation and this is not a case of just having a chat about what we think should be done with regard to this issue. We are framing statute law that will oblige certain things to happen. It is, therefore, important to get the language right, that it is as tight as possible and that there is no wriggle room or opportunity for any organisation to decide it cannot provide the information as quickly as it is needed by the Minister or that it can only provide certain items of information and not others.

This legislation deals with children and we are talking here about the deaths of children in care. We must ensure that the independent review group gets what it needs in a timely fashion and that the report is published in a timely fashion and is available to the public. We must ensure that in the future we can develop a system in which people can feel confident that the most vulnerable children in our society are genuinely in care when they are in the care of the State and that they are not subject to some of the scandalous things that have happened to some of the children that have been in the so-called care of the State. We must get the wording absolutely tight and right in this Bill.

I will respond briefly to the Minister of State. I want to come back to amendment 4a. The Minister of State’s response was a little tautological. He does not want to publish the guidelines because they are really between him and the HSE, but the guidelines, at any rate, can be accessed, according to the Minister of State, through the freedom of information legislation. However, if one looks for the guidelines under freedom of information legislation, there is a possibility one will not get them because they will be regarded as confidential. I am not sure what any of that means. That is a summary of what the Minister of State said to me about it.

If the Minister of State is not prepared to lay the guidelines before both Houses of the Oireachtas for amendment, I would ask him very seriously to ensure their publication. Guidelines directing the HSE as to what information and documentation it should provide and the circumstances in which it arises, are no more confidential than publishing guidelines for the protection of children. If the guidelines are not published, how do the 100,000 people, whom the Minister of State describes as employed by the HSE, know what is in them? He is not suggesting they are going to be secretly given to 100,000 people. He is not even suggesting, I assume, that the HSE has the capacity to coherently communicate what is in the guidelines to its employees because for ten years it has not been able to communicate the child care guidelines.

If this is a serious attempt by Government to ensure an organisation that has utterly failed on a whole range of crucial issues to keep Ministers and a Department informed of events is now going to change simply by the issuing of a guideline that no one sees, other than a few officials in the Department, whoever happens to be the Minister of the day and someone in the HSE headquarters, this is not going to work. Indeed, no one should have to pay — I do not care if it is €5 or €20 — to get access to a piece of information that should be in the public domain.

The Minister of State criticised the Leader of Fine Gael for referring to the X-ray scandal as a scandal and as catastrophic. For a lot of people it was a scandal and they were concerned it could have catastrophic consequences. We have had so many revelations of failures within our health service that emerge months after the failures have occurred, in some instances, years after the failures have occurred, and where the information is either drip-fed to the media as a consequence of a journalist getting some information or a victim of failure going public or the acts of a whistleblower, as the Minister of State describes them. All of this has been happening because there is an ethos and culture of obsessive secrecy within the HSE and at middle and upper management levels, a cover-up mentality for fear that when things go wrong, someone might be held accountable. Of course, the irony is that no one is ever held accountable. This is an organisation where no one in a management position accepts accountability for everything. Ministers and Ministers of State then say that because they cannot micromanage the service, they cannot be held accountable either.

This is a philosophy of decent people whose political parties have been in Government for far too long and who are overwhelmed by an institutional ethic which believes the public should know as little as possible and by the desire to never be held accountable for anything that ever goes wrong. It is part of what is rotten in our system of governance and it applies to the HSE. This is not a criticism of the extraordinarily dedicated professionals working in frontline services or of some of the excellent people in middle and higher management. Of course there are good people within the organisation — many good and dedicated people. However, that does not take away from the fact that the structure of the organisation and the manner in which it operates has been consistently exposed to be dysfunctional in a broad range of areas, and certainly with regard to dealing with the public and issues of transparency and accountability where there are problems.

If the Minister of State intends to issue guidelines on these issues, there is no coherent reason for them not to be published. These are general guidelines. If he has concerns because he does not want to be alarmist about something — which, ultimately, may prove not to be a real cause of concern — or concerns about publishing specifications on a particular issue before he knows the information he is seeking from the HSE, I would have some sympathy for those concerns. The Minister of State could hear about something that would be a general cause of public alarm if it proved true and he might specify he was seeking information on it. Then, when the information comes to him and assuming it is comprehensive, accurate and truthful, it may well be the case that there is no problem at all. I can understand why some discreet specification about a particular issue should not necessarily be immediately published, but a general set of guidelines should be published.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan referred to the review group, as did I and other speakers. It is important that all the information it requires is furnished to it. When the group receives that information, who is to know how comprehensive it will be, particularly in the context of the revelations that have occurred with regard to the failure of the HSE to properly maintain files relating to children in care? Files are maintained in a haphazard fashion, information is missing and photographs are found on the floors of storerooms with nobody knowing to which files they should be attached. Who knows to what extent this information will be the comprehensive information required?

Another defect of the Bill is the fact no statutory powers are conferred on the review group to interview or talk to individuals employed by the HSE who were involved with a particular child or young person in a care setting who has died in order to get additional information if required. Nor is there any provision that ensures that both current and former employees of the HSE will co-operate in providing such information. This is a huge lacuna which we will address later.

I have a concern also about an issue that has not yet been addressed. I have no doubt that when the Minister of State established the review group, he did it with the best of motives. I know that he doubted the information he had been given at the time, because if he did not doubt it, the review group would never have been established. The information we had been given was that 23 children had died in care and that is the information the Minister of State gave to the House. I have no doubt — I may be able to confirm this if I can access the information through a freedom of information inquiry — that the Minister of State was vigorously trying to get the HSE to clarify that information but was coming up against a brick wall. I have no doubt that he came into the House in good faith and told us that 23 people had died in care but thought the information was a bit dodgy and could not be relied upon and that is the reason he established the review group, to require the HSE to validate the information. He told the House the group would complete its work by 31 December 2010.

We now know that 188 people died in care, over 100 of whom died of non-natural causes. I am concerned that the review group, which must examine all the papers and documentation and make such other inquiries as it deems appropriate, will be overwhelmed now by the volume of work it must do. To what extent has that been considered by the Minister of State, the Government or the review group? How can it carry out its task now? It is quite a different matter to examine the files and papers relating to 23 deceased young people than to examine the files and papers relating to 188 young people, and possibly more if it turns out the HSE is still wrong about its figures. Will the Minister of State say something to the House about that during the course of this discussion?

I do not intend to repeat what I said in my initial comments on these amendments, but will make a general comment about the HSE. An impression that cannot be contradicted by mere fact has been created that the HSE is some monster living in a cellar somewhere that stalks the land and ——

It is the Minister of State's colleagues who have said that. I never did.

The fact that members of my party seem to think the same thing just goes to show how difficult it is to contradict it. Surveys suggest that in excess of 90% of people who have received service from the HSE have been satisfied with that service. However, the figure representing those who feel the HSE is doing a good job is probably less than 10%. The notion has seeped into the public mind that all of the good things that happen in the HSE happen in spite of the corporate body of the HSE. People agree there are great people working in hospital wards, in social work and in middle management and that some of the people in higher management are well motivated, but that equity within the HSE is at an all-time low.

A little like with politicians.

Yes, we find it hard to sell our story. It does not suit the narrative that is sometimes fed by comments made in the House. Deputy Shatter is concerned about the volume of work involved for the review group. I share his concern since the new figures were issued. I have indicated to members of the group and in the media that I will provide the group with whatever additional resources it needs in order to complete its work. It is an issue about which the group is concerned. Whatever additional personnel, such as researchers, are required, we will meet those needs.

I repeat my objection to the amendments. The word "guidelines" is used specifically and deliberately to ensure that these allow the greatest flexibility possible to the HSE to provide the information. The guidelines are distinguished from the "directions" under section 10 of the 2004 Act. I should also make it clear that under section 40B, the executive shall provide information to the Minister without delay and shall comply with any guidelines that may be issued on the provision of information or on the class of documents the Minister specifies must be complied with. That is a much stronger position than has been the case so far and the section can only be described as one that improves the accountability of the HSE to the Minister. Any other interpretation does not hold water.

The publication of guidelines is something that can be provided through freedom of information channels, if appropriate. Deputy Shatter pointed out with some insight reasons that had not occurred to me with regard to whether to allow this information. There are serious circumstances where it may not be in the public interest to release that information.

However, that is in respect of the specifications and not the guidelines. They are two entirely different things.

Yes, but one issues guidelines in respect of the furnishing of information under either what the HSE notify me about or what I decide. Section 40B(b)(i) refers to “any such occurrence or development that, in the opinion of the Executive, the Minister is likely to [require]”. Consequently, this pertains to a proactive decision taken by the executive. Section 40B(b)(ii) deals with a decision by the Minister to provide in writing for categories of documents. Moreover, if these documents create a concern for the Minister, section 40C enables me or the Minister for Health and Children to specify what further action or inquiry might be required. Although sections 40B and 40C operate separately, they can be read together and one strengthens the other in that sense. For those reasons, I reject the amendments.

I intend to press amendment No. 2.

Question put: "That the word proposed to be deleted stand."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 72; Níl, 62.

  • Ahern, Bertie.
  • Ahern, Dermot.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Ahern, Noel.
  • Andrews, Barry.
  • Andrews, Chris.
  • Aylward, Bobby.
  • Blaney, Niall.
  • Brady, Áine.
  • Brady, Cyprian.
  • Brady, Johnny.
  • Browne, John.
  • Byrne, Thomas.
  • Calleary, Dara.
  • Carey, Pat.
  • Collins, Niall.
  • Conlon, Margaret.
  • Connick, Seán.
  • Cregan, John.
  • Cuffe, Ciarán.
  • Curran, John.
  • Dempsey, Noel.
  • Devins, Jimmy.
  • Dooley, Timmy.
  • Fitzpatrick, Michael.
  • Fleming, Seán.
  • Flynn, Beverley.
  • Gogarty, Paul.
  • Gormley, John.
  • Grealish, Noel.
  • Hanafin, Mary.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Haughey, Seán.
  • Healy-Rae, Jackie.
  • Hoctor, Máire.
  • Kelleher, Billy.
  • Kelly, Peter.
  • Kenneally, Brendan.
  • Kennedy, Michael.
  • Killeen, Tony.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lenihan, Conor.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • McGrath, Mattie.
  • McGrath, Michael.
  • McGuinness, John.
  • Mansergh, Martin.
  • Moloney, John.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Mulcahy, Michael.
  • Nolan, M.J.
  • Ó Cuív, Éamon.
  • Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
  • O’Brien, Darragh.
  • O’Connor, Charlie.
  • O’Dea, Willie.
  • O’Donoghue, John.
  • O’Hanlon, Rory.
  • O’Keeffe, Batt.
  • O’Keeffe, Edward.
  • O’Rourke, Mary.
  • O’Sullivan, Christy.
  • Power, Peter.
  • Power, Seán.
  • Roche, Dick.
  • Ryan, Eamon.
  • Sargent, Trevor.
  • Smith, Brendan.
  • Wallace, Mary.
  • White, Mary Alexandra.
  • Woods, Michael.

Níl

  • Bannon, James.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Behan, Joe.
  • Breen, Pat.
  • Broughan, Thomas P.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Burke, Ulick.
  • Byrne, Catherine.
  • Carey, Joe.
  • Clune, Deirdre.
  • Connaughton, Paul.
  • Coonan, Noel J.
  • Costello, Joe.
  • Coveney, Simon.
  • Crawford, Seymour.
  • Creed, Michael.
  • Creighton, Lucinda.
  • D’Arcy, Michael.
  • Deasy, John.
  • Doyle, Andrew.
  • Durkan, Bernard J.
  • English, Damien.
  • Feighan, Frank.
  • Ferris, Martin.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Flanagan, Terence.
  • Gilmore, Eamon.
  • Hayes, Brian.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Lynch, Ciarán.
  • Lynch, Kathleen.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • McEntee, Shane.
  • McGinley, Dinny.
  • McGrath, Finian.
  • McHugh, Joe.
  • Mitchell, Olivia.
  • Naughten, Denis.
  • Neville, Dan.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
  • Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
  • O’Donnell, Kieran.
  • O’Dowd, Fergus.
  • O’Mahony, John.
  • O’Shea, Brian.
  • O’Sullivan, Jan.
  • O’Sullivan, Maureen.
  • Penrose, Willie.
  • Rabbitte, Pat.
  • Ring, Michael.
  • Shatter, Alan.
  • Sheahan, Tom.
  • Sheehan, P.J.
  • Sherlock, Seán.
  • Shortall, Róisín.
  • Stagg, Emmet.
  • Stanton, David.
  • Timmins, Billy.
  • Tuffy, Joanna.
  • Upton, Mary.
  • Varadkar, Leo.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies John Cregan and John Curran; Níl, Deputies David Stanton and Emmet Stagg.
Question declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 4, line 16, after "subsection (1)" to insert the following:

"including as to the timing, manner and content of the furnishing of such information".

Amendment put and declared lost.

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 4, line 17, to delete "guidelines" and substitute "directions".

Question, "That the words proposed to be deleted stand", put and declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.

I move amendment No. 4a:

In page 4, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following:

"(3) Any guidelines issued by the Minister pursuant to this section shall be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas upon issuing and shall be the subject of debate in each House and amenable to amendment by a motion passed in each House within 3 months of being so laid.

(4) Any specification by the Minister in respect of an occurrence or development pursuant to subsection (1)(b)(ii) herein shall be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas by the Minister within 7 days of being furnished to the Executive.”.

Amendment put and declared lost.

Amendments Nos. 5 and 12 are related and may be discussed together.

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 4, line 20, after "functions" to insert the following:

"including political accountability to the Oireachtas".

As I mentioned earlier, the explanatory memorandum describes the purpose of the Bill as strengthening "the legislative base for the provision of information by the Health Service Executive to the Minister for Health and Children so as to enhance the Minister's ability to fulfil his or her role and functions (including political accountability to the Oireachtas)". Those words "political accountability to the Oireachtas" are nowhere to be found in the Bill. The approach taken by Government to the health service and to the child care services by the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, and the Minister of State, Deputy John Moloney, is that their job is to articulate policy and the job of the HSE is to deliver a service. They have been very good at articulating policy and where there have been failures, it has been in the service delivery.

We are constantly told in this House that the Minister is not politically accountable for the delivery of service. There is a disconnect between what the explanatory memorandum says the Bill is about and what the Bill actually does. If, as the Bill appears to do, there is now going to be a requirement on the HSE to keep Ministers and Government informed of how service delivery is being affected and where there are problems in the context of political accountability, the Minister should be accountable to the Dáil to inform it of that information.

We need to get away from the ridiculous situation that has arisen whereby, when a Deputy in any party tables a parliamentary question about the health service or the child care services, the reply he is given is that it is not a matter that falls within the functions of the Minister and that the Minister will inform the HSE, which will write to the Deputy. The HSE may write within a month, two months or six months. Sometimes one may have to table two or three further parliamentary questions to find out why the HSE has not responded. If it has responded, too often the response is evasive.

Until the HSE was created the Minister for Health and Children responded to issues relating to service delivery in this House. I was Fine Gael spokesperson for health for three years from 1998 through to 2000. When I tabled a parliamentary question about problems with service delivery, I got a substantive answer, which is as it should be. That is the way it should be following the enactment of this Bill because there should then be no information that the Minister cannot obtain other than information that may relate to preserving the confidentiality of the name of an individual in certain circumstances. However, there should be no information that is not accessible to the Minister in his or her role of being politically accountable to this House.

I seek to amend section 40C to insert a reference to political accountability. Where the Bill states, "The Minister may, where he or she considers it necessary in the public interest to do so for the performance of his or her functions", I wish to add "including political accountability to the Oireachtas". I hope the Minister will take that amendment on board because there is a democratic deficit in the manner in which we are currently operating, to the detriment of the public. This Bill must do more than simply provide a channel of communication between the Minister and HSE that, until now, has been either closed or defective. That channel must be opened to the extent that the Minister can account to this House for the running of our health service and children's services. My amendment will facilitate that.

I support Deputy Shatter's amendment, which I hope the Minister of State will accept for the sake of clarity. Even if he does not, perhaps we can still use this legislation as a mechanism for getting answers from the Minister. One of her functions is to be accountable to this Chamber, which represents the people. It would tighten the legislation if Deputy Shatter's amendment were accepted.

We have difficulty obtaining answers in the House. Members of the Minister's party would be very pleased if they could be sure they could get an answer from the Minister for Health and Children whenever they table a parliamentary question. The Department of Health and Children is the only Department in respect of which most of the questions tabled therefor are not directly answered by the Minister. Instead, they are referred to the HSE. Certain questions are not answered by the Department of Transport and are transferred to the NRA and other bodies. Despite this, we generally get full answers from all Ministers with the exception of the Minister for Health and Children. This has been a problem for every elected public representative of every political hue since the legislation establishing the HSE was passed, at which time the Minister gave powers away in terms of being answerable to elected representatives.

I strongly support the restoration of the accountability function of the Minister whereby it would be made clear that she has the power and a duty to obtain the information asked for by public representatives in parliamentary questions. She probably has the power anyway but does not exercise it. She should have the power to obtain the required information and put it on the public record. In that context, I fully support Deputy Shatter's amendment. I hope the legislation extends, perhaps inadvertently, our ability to obtain answers from the Minister in any case.

I doubt if the Office of the Attorney General has permitted an inadvertent provision of that scale in the legislation. Deputy O'Sullivan said one of the Minister's functions is to be accountable. Therefore, the question must be asked whether it is necessary to include what is proposed in the amendment. By the Deputy's own admission, the text as it stands covers the fact that one of the functions of a Minister is to be accountable to the Oireachtas.

The parliamentary questions paper on any given day contains many questions on medical cards. These questions are very important to many individuals but their cases would not be matters of national significance. One wonders whether the Minister should have to deal with queries at that level in a modern democracy. While they may be legitimate, one must ask whether it should necessarily be the job of a member of the Cabinet to trawl through them. This holds true not only for the Department of Health and Children but also for the Departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Social Protection. The cases I describe are not anticipated in this legislation. We are dealing with matters of significance rather than the kinds of issues covered by parliamentary questions on a daily basis. There is a good reason the Minister enabled the HSE to deal with such matters directly.

One of the major purposes of the Bill is to ensure accountability. Sections 40B and 40C will strengthen the Minister's ability to discharge her accountability function to the Oireachtas. For that reason, I am not accepting the amendment.

I have difficulty with what the Minister is saying because I do not understand why there is a discrepancy between what the explanatory memorandum states the Bill does and the actual content of the Bill. It is very unusual because these documents are prepared very carefully. Those who drafted the explanatory memorandum felt, when referring to this very particular area, the need to include the phrase "including political accountability to the Oireachtas". I do not understand why the Minister will not accept my amendment or why the Office of the Attorney General did not include that wording in the Bill. If the Minister of State says the legislation is to facilitate political accountability to the Oireachtas, he should accept the amendment. The wording I seek to include makes sure that the issues I am concerned about will be addressed.

The problem is that the Minister does not regard herself as accountable for anything to do with the delivery of services. That is an important issue and I disagree with the Minister of State's view on it. The delivery of services is not just about the issuing of an individual medical card to an applicant who may be entitled to it, it is about a range of issues. Included are the operation and management of accident and emergency units in hospitals, the reason beds may be vacant in a ward when there are people lying on trolleys in the accident and emergency section, and the reasons X-rays are not properly reviewed, which might affect hundreds of people. These are issues about the day-to-day running of our medical services.

The Minister does not regard herself as accountable to the House except when there is a great uproar and public scandal and it ceases to be credible to say in the House that she will send a letter to the HSE about it. If the failure is of sufficient enormity, the fiction that the Minister is involved only in the development of policy and that the HSE is involved only in delivering the service is suddenly sidelined and the Minister comes into the House to report to it.

When there is not a scandal, catastrophe or revelation about something that should have occurred and it is a general Dáil question about a matter of concern, it is referred to the HSE.

The Minister of State mentioned medical cards. If a Member asks a question now about the medical card, he or she will be told the Minister will write to the HSE. Of course, the Member might be told, as we have been for weeks — the Minister of State might clarify where we now stand — that unfortunately we cannot even communicate with the HSE because there is an industrial dispute and it will not tell us anything. I presume the industrial dispute is over. I have not tabled in the past couple of days a Dáil question that would have generated, as questions did until last week, that sort of response. The Minister of State might clarify whether the industrial dispute is at an end.

We were in the ridiculous position where we had a Minister telling us that she did not really deal with this directly and she would communicate with the HSE but she cannot because there is an industrial dispute and if we are still interested in the issue, would we ever table the question again. My colleague, Deputy Durkan, on a regular basis on the Order of Business, persistently and correctly pursued that issue.

Let me tell the House something about medical cards. I have a situation in my constituency in which, I think, the reply issued yesterday that the Minister was writing to the HSE and it would respond to me, where persons who are entitled to a medical card because they have certain serious illness and who get them on a discretionary basis are now having medical cards issued to them for two months at a time and they must keep on reapplying because the staff shortages dealing with the progression of medical cards are such that no one is willing to take responsibility to issue a medical card for 12 months. I have one very elderly pensioner constituent who is a distressed individual who every two months thinks her medical card will be cancelled and must keep reapplying.

To my mind, that might be an individual issue worth bringing into this House to which I should get a substantive response, not a Minister telling me she will write to the HSE, because that is an issue that does not just affect that individual. How many other individuals does it affect and how much public money is being wasted in repetitive applications being processed and temporary medical cards repetitively being issued to individuals who should get their medical card as they did heretofore for a year or longer without having to repetitively apply, and individuals who are distressed by serious illnesses who do not need the worry, particularly when they are elderly, of fearing they might suddenly be deprived of their medical card? That goes beyond the micromanagement of the health service.

This is an amendment I would have hoped the Minister of State would accept but, of course, I have learnt in this Dáil that Ministers generally do not accept any amendments. I usually get to this point in these sort of proceedings where I really wonder why I burnt the midnight oil tabling any amendments and maybe we should just abandon Committee and Report Stages. I feel I have a public duty to raise these issues and I will continue to do so. I will conclude because I want us then to move on and deal with some of the other amendments that need to be addressed. I thank Deputy Jan O'Sullivan for her support for this amendment.

We only have 15 minutes left and I do not want to spend too much time on this either. In some ways, it is a discussion which we should be having in a broader context because there is considerable frustration. As health spokesperson I find it frustrating in terms of getting information on a wide variety of issues. For example, the reports on reconfiguration of hospital services were secret until in my region the Labour Party managed to get its hands on it and decided to publish, and then the HSE published it. That is just one example but it is extremely difficult to get information on the health services in general. It would make life so much easier for all of us in our public function. I do not mean we are trying to get this information as some kind of personal curiosity. It is in our public function, as representatives of the people, that we need this information but it is extremely difficult to get it.

Our quarterly meeting with the Minister and Professor Drumm is coming up in the next month and with the number of questions that have been tabled by members of the Joint Committee on Health and Children, these meetings are getting ever longer. We have no way of getting the information, except in that quarterly face-to-face meeting.

I do not want to spend all the scarce time we have left on this issue but it is one on which we need to have a full debate in some other context in the interests of our representative democracy so that people can get the information they require on the health services, which are such an important area of our lives and also such a significant element of public spending in the context of tight resources. This is something that needs wider debate. I support the amendment.

I, too, support the amendment. The only point I wanted to make, because we have argued this repeatedly here on several occasions, is that perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, might note for the future that over this past difficult period of work to rule and non-co-operation with elected voices some Ministers behaved with a degree of sane and sensible response by stating the Department noted the parliamentary question and will revert to the Deputy as soon as it is in a position to do so. Only last week there was an example of proactivity on the part of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Ó Cuív, who wrote to Deputies in advance of the resolution of these difficulties highlighting his intention to address correspondence and parliamentary questions that had yet to be resolved and to start the process in preparation for the responses to issue.

However, with the Department of Health and Children time after time the responses were that if the Deputy is still interested, he or she may resubmit whenever this difficulty is resolved, putting the onus back on the Deputies once again to resubmit, which I have been doing since the indication of the ending of the work to rule. That is indicative of a contemptuous disposition on the part of the Minister and those responsible in terms of responding to Members of this House and contrasts badly with the practice in other Departments.

I also support this amendment. The deeply worrying aspect of this Bill is that it misses such a great opportunity to do right in terms of completeness and my concerns, particularly around the fact that the Minister will be informed by the HSE which is something with which we all would agree and would want to see happen. I am concerned about the Stalinist-type censorship that the Minister can then operate. There is no onus on the Minister to make that information available to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children or on the floor of the House.

Furthermore, we could find ourselves in a rather outrageous situation where an independent group is asked to review a particular aspect of the service, the Minister will be the one to provide the information which will come to him or her from the HSE, but he or she can decide to only provide part of the information thereby rendering the investigation useless and pointless.

We need to include a line in the Bill, as my colleague, Deputy Shatter, has provided for, to ensure that there is political accountability. While we are short on time, the other point I would make is that there seems to be no sanction here for failure of the HSE to provide information and no reasonable time period given in which it must provide the information.

First, I want to clarify that arising from the Croke Park deal, the industrial action by IMPACT in the HSE has been lifted. Unfortunately, the CPSU, which represents the clerical officers, is still engaged in industrial action and this can cause problems in getting parliamentary questions and representations sent on to the HSE. However, I would take the point that Deputy Ó Caoláin makes about the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív. Clarity is probably due to Deputies and Senators in regard to questions that are submitted.

In any case, where a specific case of a child in care or a vulnerable child is submitted by way of question, the HSE has co-operated in providing information even during the course of the dispute. It is important that I make this point.

The Attorney General has made it clear in his analysis of the legislation that he is satisfied the text addresses the issue of political accountability. As Deputy Jan O'Sullivan mentioned, being accountable to the Dáil is one of the functions of the Minister. One would have believed it to be the central function. What is captured in Deputy Shatter's amendment is already anticipated in the text and, therefore, the amendment is unnecessary.

We have been through the general arguments about the HSE and have drifted a little. The explanatory memorandum was written for a specific purpose. Deputy Shatter's point that if something is in the explanatory memorandum, it should be in the legislation is an argument to transpose the entire memorandum into law. I am not sure that makes sense. The memorandum is meant to elucidate the Bill for people who might not have the capacity to read difficult statutes. The argument does not hold up. The Attorney General's office is quite clear that the text and the word "functions" include the issue of political accountability.

Deputy Shatter gets annoyed because he seems to believe that amendments are tabled but not duly considered. They are given every consideration, but one cannot accept unnecessary amendments and, from the Attorney General's advice, this amendment is unnecessary.

Amendment put and declared lost.

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 4, line 21, after "otherwise)," to insert the following:

"or the performance of the functions of any other Minister of the Government,".

In the legislation, the power to compel the production of information relates purely to the functions of the Department of Health and Children. For example, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform functions might be available to the HSE, so information on them should be furnished under the Bill. I suggest that the section be extended to cover the functions of any Minister, since the information required, while in the HSE's possession, could relate to the functions of Ministers other than the Minister for Health and Children.

The purpose of the Bill is to address the issue of the provision of information by the HSE to the Minister. It is tied to the Minister's functions under the Health Act 2004 and any other enactment, such as the Ministers and Secretaries Act. In particular, section 40C is about the Minister being able to require information from the executive free of specified legal prohibitions. In this sense, it is especially about providing a safe channel of communication for information that may on occasion be sensitive.

In essence, the Bill is about strengthening the legal base for the provision of information from the executive to the Minister for the purpose of the latter being better able to perform her functions, including political accountability to the Oireachtas. In such circumstances, it would not be appropriate for the Minister for Health and Children to be able to require information relevant to the performance of functions of other Ministers.

I will tease this issue out. Some of these files would presumably contain information that relates to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in particular and possibly to the Departments of Social Protection and, in so far as housing issues might be involved, the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. If the file contains information that relates to the functions of other Ministers, I want to be clear on whether the HSE will hand it over to the independent review group so that the latter might have all of the information pertinent to a case. This is a relevant issue. If the Minister of State can assure me the provision is covered in some way, I will accept that, but I do not want us to pass the legislation only to find chunks of files cannot be handed over because they relate to other Departments.

In the exercise, the Attorney General is to try to get simple case files handed over to the independent review group. The section on which the Deputy is focusing states: "The Minister may, where he or she considers it necessary in the public interest to do so for the performance of his or her functions (whether under this Act or otherwise)." This section ensures that whatever the HSE is required to furnish to the Minister is in the public interest and not for a purpose that is not significant for the performance of the functions of the Minister. It is a safeguard to the protect the HSE as well as to ensure that the information can be transferred.

The Deputy is correct, as there will in practice be references to children who have been the subjects of detention or orders under the Children Act. However, this would not prevent the information being transferred to the independent review group. If this is the Deputy's concern, I assure her the transfer will not be hindered by the text.

I will accept the assurance of the Minister of State. I presume he has received legal advice on these matters, so I will not press the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I move amendment No. 7:

In page 4, line 24, after "Executive's" to insert "procurement,".

I understand the Minister of State has indicated his willingness to accept this amendment. Is that correct?

We must all be in shock.

Amendment agreed to.

I move amendment No. 8:

In page 5, line 2, after "person" to insert "or persons".

There is no chance the Minister of State will accept this simple amendment. To be of help, I suggest that we take amendments Nos. 8 to 10, inclusive, with this amendment, given the relationship between them. We will not get much further anyway.

Amendment No. 8 relates to section 40D, which states: "Where the Minister has appointed a person to examine or inquire into any matter, and considers that any information or document that has been furnished under section 40B or 40C may be relevant to that examination or inquiry, the Minister may furnish that information or document to the person". The Minister has appointed two people to the review group, so this is a very straightforward and simple amendment to make reference to the fact where the Minister appoints a person, or persons. I would not think this is an exceptional amendment and I hope the Minister of State might accept it.

Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 do something else. The former proposes the inclusion of a section 40E, which would read: "Where the Minister has appointed a person or persons to examine or inquire into any matter and the person or persons so appointed consider that any information or document may be relevant to that examination or inquiry the Health Service Executive where it is in possession of said information or document or has access to it shall upon request furnish that information or document to the person or persons who requested that information or document." In the list of amendments, the proposed section 40E is incorrectly printed a second time as section 40F, so I presume the numbers should be changed. Section 40F should read: "Nothing contained in an enactment and no rule of law relating to the non-disclosure or confidentiality of information or documents or relating——"

I am bound by the order of the House and it is now 5.30 p.m.

I will conclude in one sentence. In circumstances in which a debate of this seriousness on an issue of this importance is guillotined, the Fine Gael Party will be voting against the Minister of State's proposal that this discussion be closed down and that no further amendments of any description from this side of the House be accepted.

In accordance with the Order of the House today, I must put the following question: "That, in respect of each of the sections undisposed of, the section or, as appropriate, the section as amended, is hereby agree to in Committee, the Title is agreed to in Committee, the Bill as amended is accordingly reported to the House, that Fourth Stage is hereby completed and the Bill is hereby passed."

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 93; Níl, 47.

  • Ahern, Bertie.
  • Ahern, Dermot.
  • Ahern, Michael.
  • Ahern, Noel.
  • Andrews, Barry.
  • Andrews, Chris.
  • Aylward, Bobby.
  • Behan, Joe.
  • Blaney, Niall.
  • Brady, Áine.
  • Brady, Cyprian.
  • Brady, Johnny.
  • Broughan, Thomas P.
  • Browne, John.
  • Burton, Joan.
  • Byrne, Thomas.
  • Calleary, Dara.
  • Carey, Pat.
  • Collins, Niall.
  • Conlon, Margaret.
  • Connick, Seán.
  • Costello, Joe.
  • Cregan, John.
  • Cuffe, Ciarán.
  • Curran, John.
  • Dempsey, Noel.
  • Devins, Jimmy.
  • Dooley, Timmy.
  • Ferris, Martin.
  • Fitzpatrick, Michael.
  • Fleming, Seán.
  • Flynn, Beverley.
  • Gilmore, Eamon.
  • Gogarty, Paul.
  • Grealish, Noel.
  • Hanafin, Mary.
  • Harney, Mary.
  • Haughey, Seán.
  • Healy-Rae, Jackie.
  • Higgins, Michael D.
  • Hoctor, Máire.
  • Kelleher, Billy.
  • Kelly, Peter.
  • Kenneally, Brendan.
  • Kennedy, Michael.
  • Killeen, Tony.
  • Kitt, Tom.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lenihan, Conor.
  • Lynch, Ciarán.
  • Lynch, Kathleen.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • McGrath, Finian.
  • McGrath, Mattie.
  • McGrath, Michael.
  • McGuinness, John.
  • McManus, Liz.
  • Mansergh, Martin.
  • Martin, Micheál.
  • Moloney, John.
  • Moynihan, Michael.
  • Mulcahy, Michael.
  • Nolan, M.J.
  • Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
  • Ó Cuív, Éamon.
  • Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
  • Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
  • O’Brien, Darragh.
  • O’Connor, Charlie.
  • O’Dea, Willie.
  • O’Donoghue, John.
  • O’Hanlon, Rory.
  • O’Keeffe, Edward.
  • O’Rourke, Mary.
  • O’Shea, Brian.
  • O’Sullivan, Christy.
  • O’Sullivan, Jan.
  • Penrose, Willie.
  • Power, Peter.
  • Power, Seán.
  • Rabbitte, Pat.
  • Roche, Dick.
  • Ryan, Eamon.
  • Sargent, Trevor.
  • Sherlock, Seán.
  • Shortall, Róisín.
  • Smith, Brendan.
  • Stagg, Emmet.
  • Tuffy, Joanna.
  • Upton, Mary.
  • Wallace, Mary.
  • White, Mary Alexandra.
  • Woods, Michael.

Níl

  • Bannon, James.
  • Barrett, Seán.
  • Breen, Pat.
  • Bruton, Richard.
  • Burke, Ulick.
  • Byrne, Catherine.
  • Carey, Joe.
  • Clune, Deirdre.
  • Connaughton, Paul.
  • Coonan, Noel J.
  • Coveney, Simon.
  • Crawford, Seymour.
  • Creed, Michael.
  • Creighton, Lucinda.
  • D’Arcy, Michael.
  • Deasy, John.
  • Deenihan, Jimmy.
  • Doyle, Andrew.
  • Durkan, Bernard J
  • English, Damien.
  • Enright, Olwyn.
  • Feighan, Frank.
  • Flanagan, Charles.
  • Flanagan, Terence.
  • Hayes, Brian.
  • Hogan, Phil.
  • Kenny, Enda.
  • McCormack, Pádraic.
  • McEntee, Shane.
  • McGinley, Dinny.
  • McHugh, Joe.
  • Mitchell, Olivia.
  • Naughten, Denis.
  • Neville, Dan.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • O’Donnell, Kieran.
  • O’Dowd, Fergus.
  • O’Mahony, John.
  • O’Sullivan, Maureen.
  • Reilly, James.
  • Ring, Michael.
  • Shatter, Alan.
  • Sheahan, Tom.
  • Sheehan, P.J.
  • Stanton, David.
  • Timmins, Billy.
  • Varadkar, Leo.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies John Cregan and John Curran; Níl, Deputies David Stanton and Ulick Burke.
Question declared carried.
Top
Share