Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and wish them well in their new roles. We have heard a great deal about the drive for efficiencies in the Department and in the hospital networks. In the past if those in the public sector did not spend their allocation they did not get it again. How will efficiency be rewarded within hospital networks? I also worked in the HSE and I remember coming up to November or December making decisions to buy a flat screen television for the out patient waiting room because if we did not spend the money it would be taken from the budget for the following year. Some hospitals have been implementing the efficiencies and are doing what they have been asked. Will they be punished next time around or how will their efficiency be rewarded? If our strategy is to be successful, I believe it must be rewarded. Will our speakers say how they will do that?

I wish to raise the collection of the moneys due from insurance companies. Who is not doing their job? Are the insurance companies not paying the Department? Is somebody in the HSE not filling out the form and asking for the money? I have information from my own family experience. My grandfather, who is lucky enough to have private health insurance, spent a long period of time in a public hospital and then had a very serious operation in a private hospital. On the day he was discharged from the private hospital, he was presented with a bill. He is still waiting for his bill from the public hospital. That is just not good enough. He has paid for health insurance all his life and he knows the insurance money is there and he wants the money to be returned to the State. Somebody is not doing their job. If they are not doing it why are they not doing it? What will be done about it?