Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 19 May 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children

HIQA Investigation into Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise (Resumed): Health Service Executive

11:30 am

Photo of John GilroyJohn Gilroy (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I understand that but I was just curious about it. That leads me to my second point. At this morning's session we heard powerful and moving contributions from the families. The one message that I heard very clearly concerned the difficulty in obtaining information. I am very frustrated by what I am hearing this afternoon because in my view, Mr. O'Brien's contribution bears very little relation to the HIQA report. His response was defensive, reflexive and legalistic, with more regard to process than to explaining. That is what I am looking for today but I am no closer to getting an explanation now than I was before the meeting started.

We have heard about the legalistic and regulatory obligations, disciplinary procedures, oversight, implementation programmes, cultural shifts and so forth. We even heard terms like "subset of a directorate". The submission was laden with jargon and seemed to be designed to obscure the issues rather than to enlighten us. I am sorry for being so harsh but this is how I feel about it. Mr. O'Brien seemed to be suggesting that one of his concerns about the HIQA report was the absence of reference to individuals.

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