Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

By and large, the public service, Departments and semi-State organisations do a very good job. At this committee - I am only a recent member of it - we get to see the wrong end of public service and public administration. This is the worst element of what I have seen by virtue of the people concerned and their vulnerable nature.

What this case brings home to me is the absolute and total lack of any level of accountability or responsibility. No one has been fired and no one probably will be fired. As Deputy Dowds said, it is not only on this particular issue. Every time the HSE has been before this committee since I became a member, it is just a continuation of circling the wagons, never taking responsibility, never admitting it did anything wrong, having the truth dragged out of it and, at the end of the day, begrudgingly giving an apology. Does it matter who the next Minister for Health will be while that culture of not taking responsibility and not accepting accountability is there? Ultimately, the only responsibility that can be taken here is that somebody has to vacate their position. Somebody either has to resign or has to be fired on the basis of what happened.

I do not for any reason disbelieve the Waterford Intellectual Disability Association on the basis of the work it does for the children and young people. However, it stated, it was surprised by the Department’s efforts “to discredit us and damage our professional reputations”. At the end of it, it said, “treatment of us as whistleblowers is as despicable now as it was six years ago. It has taken six years for us to get to this.”

It is a pity it is the last meeting before the Dáil is dissolved. Ultimately, as the French say, plus ça change. Unless somebody walks over this, I do not think it will matter to the people concerned at the centre of it. I believe that is the only level of accountability and responsibility that can come from this.