Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Alan Kelly has raised a very important point. When a presentation was made less than two years ago to the regional health forum in Galway, of which I was a member, the figure was nowhere near the one we are hearing now. As councillors and public representatives, we gave the thumbs-up to a project on the basis of a presentation. Nobody ever came back to us to say things had changed. This makes a nonsense of the involvement of the regional health forum in information-sharing. All that is wanted is a thumbs-up and a public campaign of positivity. Nobody comes back after it has been achieved. That is where the concept of accountability falls down.