John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In this case, a Garda investigation remains ongoing but the proposals are there and have been accepted. Mr. Watt said that one corrects things as one goes along and that is fine but that has not been our experience with the HSE. It had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into agreeing to change its policy when it came to awarding incredibly important contracts. We are not talking about enormous amounts of money. We are not talking about millions but tens of thousands of euro in terms of the value of the contracts. I do not accept Mr. Watt's contention because our experience in here has been the polar opposite. When we raised this issue over and over again, it was ignored. We had representatives of the HSE in here and they cited some very obscure regulations with regard to getting around the competitive tender process. Two representatives from Mr. Quinn's office were also here and were asked whether they knew about this but they knew nothing about it. They knew nothing about the specific instances involved, which were disgraceful. That is just one example I would put to Mr. Watt to illustrate that it is not always about the money. The importance of this relates to the gravity of the issues involved too.