Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Every time HIQA officials appear before the committee, the quality of the information they provide is superb. From an efficiency perspective, I wish we had more statutory agencies that worked along the same lines as it. I wish Mr. Quinn the best of luck in his new role.

Both the NAS and Dublin Fire Brigade have appeared before the committee singing the praises of the services they offer but HIQA's report is blistering about them. According to the report, there is a senior management skills deficit, no technical expertise in certain areas, no clinical audit of the NAS, no strategic directive, no effective governance, insufficient advanced paramedic staff to allow the service to progress and an internal transfer of posts without interview and with skills deficits on the part of those who are moved, which is the killer. This is a blistering report compared to the picture painted for us over the past number of months.

The data are key. HIQA's focus groups were drawn from personnel around the country. Following the committee's previous hearing in this regard, I visited two centres - one run by the fire brigade and one run by the NAS. I was struck by the difference in morale and self-esteem in both establishments. There is a vast and stark difference in the reported numbers by both organisations. On the basis of the focus groups, does Ms Dunnion agree there is a much higher level of esteem among the fire brigade personnel than among the NAS staff? There is also a much greater difference in staff attendance. Can she see reasons for the stark differences between the fire brigade and NAS in the data? I acknowledge HIQA uses a hierarchical structure and treats them both as providing the same service. However, they do not provide the same service and they perform at different levels with vastly different budgets, yet the organisation with the lesser budget is performing at a much greater capacity than the organisation with the larger budget. Are there obvious reasons for that other than the stark issues I referred to?

Arising from my visits, we conducted research in the Houses of the Oireachtas with our own research team into best practice in other countries, which offer what may be termed "all singing, all dancing" emergency services. One of the glaring differences is 42 different organisations around Ireland try to offer emergency services whereas best practice in Seattle and Canada, for example, is to have one emergency service authority. What is Ms Dunnion's opinion on that?