Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I intend to make one further point. We are restructuring the health services, as is the Minister's right and he said he received a mandate to do so. However, I am very concerned that while the Minister says it is temporary, we cannot foretell what will happen in the future. In the meantime, there must be one remove at least in the appointment process to ensure it would be open, transparent and would go to the person most eminently qualified who applies for the position. That is the key issue at stake. I will refer to the broader issues in section 7 but I am pressing the amendment because I genuinely believe, as Deputy Ó Caoláin said, that we should allow anybody who feels they are eminently qualified to apply for the positions through the recruitment process. There may be precedents, but the Minister is subsuming the HSE into the Department of Health. In the context of the precedents the Minister mentioned, he would be taking functions from a Department and moving them out, sometimes with a board and accountability. Here it is the exact opposite and that is something on which people should reflect.