Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In my previous role, I have had experience of dealing with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. This is nothing less than a tactic. The Department is clearly material to the resolution of this issue and its decision to withdraw - as I understand it was arranged that the Department's officials would be here - is not acceptable. I want to convey to the witnesses the committee's position that this is not acceptable, and I am sure that the witnesses will agree with us in that. We will insist that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform comes before us because the Department is central to this matter. As we know, without its signal, the Department of Health is not in a position to move this matter forward. We will write to the Department and let it know our attitude and, hopefully, in the very near future we will have an opportunity to have a meeting with it on its own, when we can put the questions to it that the witnesses here and those they represent will want to have answered.