I tabled this question on the McKinsey Report on Comhairle na nospidéal because, as spokesman on health for the Labour Party, I was interested in the particular document and when I endeavoured to get a copy of it from the Department of Health I was told there was no copy available. This is a document that was produced out of public funds and as a spokesman for Health I was astounded to be told there was no copy available. I could not even buy a copy. There was no copy in the Library, although the Minister is obliged under the Act, at the very least, to provide a copy for the Library. On the particular day I phoned, there was no copy in the Library. The report had already been published and had been given to members of Comhairle na nOspidéal.
I phoned the Department and asked if I could buy a copy and they said no. I asked was a copy available to the health board members and I was told no. Members of Comhairle na nOspidéal were told the document was confidential and could not be shown to anyone. Comhairle no nOspidéal were set up by order of this Dáil. Comhairle na nOspidéal is to have consultations with the health boards. Therefore we must know the purpose of this report, what is in this report about Comhairle na nOspidéal. As a member of a health board and as a Member of the Dáil I am entitled to know this. In his reply the Minister said:
other interested bodies, such as health boards, voluntary hospitals, medical teaching bodies and professional and trade union organisations representing staffs of hospitals, were supplied with a copy of the report and such numbers of copies of a summary of the report as they required.
As a member of a health board I inquired about a copy and could not get one, so that that reply of the Minister is not correct. When I think of a document which cost £45,000 of public funds to produce I am wondering why a copy could not be made available. Copies of previous McKinsey Reports were in plentiful supply. As a matter of fact we had too many copies of them. I was given a copy as a member of the health board and as a member of the Dáil, so that I had two copies of those reports.
Other documents have been made available to us from the Department. An interesting book is Health Services in Ireland which is published by an official of the Department. The Department went to considerable expense to give one copy to every Member of the Dáil. I got three copies of that, one as a member of the health board, one as a Member of Dáil Éireann and one as an editor of a medical journal. Yet I could not get one copy of the other report even though I was prepared to pay for it. I am wondering what was so special in Health Services in Ireland. I have studied that book again and I have found nothing in it that is not available normally and I am wondering why so many copies were made so freely available by the Department at great public expense that I could have three copies of it. There was no bar on the distribution of that. I am asking the Minister would I be right in suggesting that he was in breach of the Act in not providing a copy for the Library when this report was published. The answer I got from the Minister's secretary was that a copy would be provided in the Library. I inquired the next day and the copy was still not in the Library. It was not until three days later, which was the following Monday —I phoned on the Thursday and it was not there—that, under pressure from me the copy was put there. I want to know why I cannot get a copy of this report, why I cannot purchase a copy. What is so confidential about it that it cannot be made available to interested people?
Health boards must be given an opportunity to discuss the contents of that document. It has been discussed already by the North-Western Health Board. Members of that board are also members of Comhairle na nOspideál and they have had an opportunity of discussing it. I cannot have the matter brought up at the next meeting of my health board, the Eastern Health Board, because I have not had an opportunity to study this. The Minister may say he supplied a summary of it. I do not care what the Minister or the secretary may say; I say the summary bears no relation to the contents of that document. It was not correct to say it was a proper summary of it; it was a bad summary and I am wondering why what purported to be a summary should have been issued as such.
The Minister has a duty to this House as Minister for Health, and I think, out of courtesy alone, he should have made copies available to the spokesmen on health, at the very least, if not to every Member of the House. I cannot reconcile his statement that it would be too costly, a few extra copies would have made no significant difference in terms of finance. The argument the Minister is going to put forward is without justification or foundation and I cannot accept it.
