Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To follow up on what Deputy Shortall has just said, I acknowledge that this meeting has been a learning experience for the committee. I have been following the meeting from my office all morning. I listened to our guests' answers to questions asked by a couple of my colleagues, particularly those asked by Deputy Colm Burke. The Deputy outlined striking examples where theatre access was pulled from people at the last minute. That is totally unprofessional and should not happen except in extreme emergencies. I must ask our guests if they have confidence in hospital management at this stage. In my view, hospital management is bulging at the seams. Massive money seems to be spent on all sorts of management streams and so on. From the work they have done, have our guests confidence in hospital management? When they were doing their research, was there resistance from hospital management to the work they were doing? Did they get co-operation from management? What was the input from management like? Were there any learnings from the input or was it confrontational and difficult? What was the experience like?