Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Vote changed from the Department of Health to the HSE in 2005. Much of the criticism of the spending in question has been to do with study trips to the United States and so on. Miraculously - or coincidentally - many of the trips happened around St. Patrick’s Day. In 2004, there was a trip to New York. In 2005, there were trips to Los Angeles and Australia. In 2006, New York. In 2007, Boston. In 2008, Georgia. In 2009, New York. All were around St. Patrick’s Day.

The funding to the HSE changed to a block grant because it could not be guaranteed it would continue because the Department would no longer be involved. In the SIPTU report, a letter, dated 12 December 2004, to Mr. Merrigan from a Mr. Bernard Carey, director of personnel management and development, stated €250,000 has been earmarked to maintain support for SIPTU’s human resources personnel development schemes and the development of management-union partnerships for best practices in health enterprises. This is someone from the Department of Health ensuring that when the HSE is established, this block grant, unaccounted for, will continue.

I am sorry to have to do it this way but if one looks at the six trips to New York, Mr. Bernard Carey took part in five of them. This is the kind of issue I am talking about. We have the person who sanctioned the funding going on the trips which happened afterwards. We are all now looking back saying this is scandalous but this was the person who sanctioned the funding in the first place. Does Dr. McLoughlin believe this was simply a catastrophic failure of governance or there was more to it?