Tag: mary harney

Lack of debate on HSE means answers to Tallaght Hospital Scandal scarce

11th March 2010

Of course it is ludicrous to suggest that the Minister should be held responsible for not opening particular letters or envelopes in Tallaght hospital. It is nonsensical to suggest it and to the extent that it has been suggested I do not agree with it. However, there is a real issue for political representatives.

Because of all the changes that have occurred and the arrival of the HSE on the scene – many on the Government side have made this point – politicians and political representatives generally have been deprived of an opportunity to raise any serious issue or have serious debate, such as that which has been called for in the Seanad or in the Dáil. The Dáil is a Chamber to which the Government is accountable and responsible under the Constitution although it is not as directly responsible to this Chamber. However not even Deputies can get answers on these issues because Ministers habitually refuse to answer them, often because they are a matter for the HSE. However, when one approaches the HSE there is no serious procedure, basis or opportunity for public representatives to raise these issues and have them debated.

I do not blame people for mistakenly thinking that every issue must be laid directly at the feet of the Minister for Health and Children because the system has been changed in such a way as to render it impossible to get any answers other than calling for the Minister to come to the House. If the Leader of the Seanad has an alternative to propose to us on how we can have a serious and adult debate on this issue I would like to hear it. Otherwise, there is no alternative to people coming here day after day to call for the Minister for Health and Children to answer questions on issues which, in a normal democracy, she would not have to address in the same detail.

It was a complete spectacle to have the Minister of State, Deputy Conor Lenihan, state that something should be done about Tallaght Hospital. Is there a democracy in the world in which a Minister of State would state that something should be done? We are told that health spending is one of the biggest areas of public expenditure over which the Government and the Oireachtas presides. It beggars belief that there is not a serious basis upon which issues such as what went wrong at Tallaght hospital can be properly debated in the Houses of the Oireachtas.

When was the last time the HSE contacted Senators rather than celebrities?

30th April 2009

The hospitals co-location project that was announced with much fanfare by the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney, and her colleagues in Government was buried by measures taken in the recent budget.

Now that this project, which involved the folly of relying on the property development sector to deal with the development of health care, is in tatters, like many of the Government’s policies, I am seeking a debate in the Seanad with the Minister on how we will fund our health care system and how we will end, once and for all, the disgrace of the two-tier health care system in which people’s means and incomes determine, if not the quality of health care, at least the speed at which they receive it?

In that context, I warmly welcome the publication this week by the Fine Gael Party of a policy programme for universal health insurance. It is an excellent contribution to the debate. The Labour Party has held the view for the best part of a decade and has published extensive policy documents to the effect that universal health insurance is clearly the way we should have proceeded when the matter was being addressed in recent years. It now manifestly is the way forward.

In terms of the standing of politicians, we have discussed on many occasions the bureaucratic monster that is the HSE, its inaccessibility and lack of democratic accountability. It has instituted a programme of public relations, the principle purpose of which is for it to contact “opinion formers”, ‘Celebrity Bainisteoirí’ and other mouthy individuals with whom it intends to discuss problems in the health services so it can get feedback. When was the last time Senators were contacted by the HSE to give feedback? When was Senator MacSharry asked about cancer services in the North West?

I heard a HSE communications expert talking about feedback this morning. People are telling us what is happening. An intensive care nurse told me last week that they cannot get the basic equipment to do their jobs and there is a shortage of staff.

We could not make this up.

This unit in the HSE is engaging in an extraordinary exercise where it contacts these celebrities to give them its spin but it completely lacks democratic accountability in the health service. I get e-mails from it every week, as do other people, but they are spin. I have a question for the HSE about this project: how will it improve health services in this State?

Government parties vote against Labour’s HSE proposals

29th May 2008

Labour's HSE proposals voted downLast night, Labour’s motion to reform the HSE were voted down by Fianna Fáil, the Greens and the PDs. Minister Harney was present for most of the debate and defended the HSE’s slow moving reforms by explaining that it was merely in its infancy.

The proposals would have sought to establish clear lines of authority in the HSE, made the Minister for Health and Children more accountable to the Oireachtas and implemented parts of the HIQA report into the Rebecca O’Malley case.

The health service is a subject which is brought up again and again in the Seanad, with members complaining of bureaucracy and that the HSE is an impenetrable organisation. It was a pity, therefore, that the government side of the house voted against the Labour proposals. I have no doubt that the complaints about the HSE from government senators will continue.

Below, you will find my speech from last night.

It is my pleasure to second this motion and welcome again the Minister for Health and Children to the House. I am interested to hear her response and those of our colleagues opposite in respect of the proposals we are bringing forward.

I will repeat a challenge I threw down to the colleagues opposite yesterday. Hardly a day or week passes without one or other of our colleagues opposite coming into this House and quite correctly criticising an aspect of the health services that has come to their attention. Time and again they make the point about the system being dysfunctional and there being a lack of clarity in terms of responsibilities and management lines. They express their frustration in this House in respect of particular problems that arise and, more seriously, the inability to obtain clarity and answers to genuine issues which arise.

The picture inevitably painted by colleagues on all sides of the House is of an almost Kafkaesque system which is impenetrable to public representatives, to say nothing of members of the public or citizens who seek to make sense of it. The frustration people have in trying to make sense of it has been echoed at the highest level in Government, as we know. A number of the Minister’s colleagues have reflected this in recent months.

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Seanad to discuss Labour motion on HSE

27th May 2008

HSE LogoTomorrow evening, the Labour party in the Seanad will raise an issue that has been talked about ad nauseam in the House.

I refer to the future of the HSE. I invite all my colleagues on the opposite side of the House, who have expressed their frustration regarding the operations of the HSE on many occasions, to support the motion the Labour Party will be tabling.

I invite the Leader of the Seanad and the Deputy Leader not to put forward the usual amendment that is tabled in respect of such a motion and which essentially involves deleting everything after the term “Seanad Éireann” and replacing it with something anodyne. I call on them to genuinely support what we are proposing, namely, a serious set of reforms regarding the HSE.

The motion is not a personal attack on the Minister, the Government or anyone else, nor is it a retreading of old arguments; it is comprised of a positive set of proposals regarding how the HSE can be reformed. This issue has been raised on numerous occasions by Senators on the opposite side of the House and I invite them to support the Labour Party motion.

More :: The Seanad debate on the HSE will take place at 5 p.m. on Wednesday May 28. You can view the proceedings live by clicking here.
More :: You can read the wording of the Labour Private Members Motion by clicking here.
More :: Learn more about Labour’s plans for reforming the HSE by clicking here.