Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Trying to get information that should be readily available has been like pulling teeth in the last few weeks. I do not believe it is acceptable. I am trying to do my job here. In order to get through this jigsaw I have made requests to the Secretary General and have asked parliamentary questions about when all the hospital groups and all the individual 11 hospitals involved were made aware of the audit programme. I have still not been told. That is unacceptable. I needed that information today. I asked for it on 3 May, long before the Scally investigation ever existed. Why have I not been given that information? It is a matter of sending an email to 14 people and telling them they have 24 hours to answer a simple question; when did they know about this audit? They will not tell me. I wanted to have that information to hand in order to ask Dr. O'Keeffe and Dr. Holohan questions here today. I cannot do my job because the witnesses are not facilitating me. It makes me wonder why that is the case.

The situation makes me wonder about the internal politics at play. The HSE was worried about the briefing that we got yesterday from Mr. McCallion and Dr. Holohan in case accountability was pushed downwards. I can understand that point of view. I am worried about ass-covering across organisations; it is undoubtedly happening. I have the HSE's organisational chart from 2016. Where are the national director of acute hospitals, Mr. Liam Woods, and the national director of quality assurance and verification, Mr. Patrick Lynch, who is now the chairman of the serious incident management team, SIMT?