Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief, particularly as I am not from Tipperary. I am from Kilkenny, although I did marry a Waterford woman or she, for her sins, married me.

Ms Mullins presentation on behalf of her group does exactly what it says on the tin: we are going backwards. I was thoroughly disappointed when she stated that since they were here in January, things have actually got worse. I am conscious that when we talk about the HSE, the staff, the cleaners and cooks and everybody else, we are talking about people who take their jobs to heart, are exemplary. The issue is with the top management. The latter probably have bonkers syndrome because they have a zero commonsense approach and zero engagement. In the context of the idea of sending people home when there are more than 6,500 on a waiting list, they might have a better of chance entering the Red Sea with a bucket that has no ass in it. That is how simplistic it is to be honest. It is the biggest smokescreen. I call it snuggle blanket syndrome. Give them a little snuggle blanket and send them home. Whoever is at home will mind them and we can move on with our fancy offices and sell the property and get back to the technicalities. I will leave it at that as I am conscious I want to give the witnesses their platform today. I was fortunate enough to get mine. I will just say that they have the support of the Joint Committee for Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen. This is a special committee because it has never played politics. Each and every issue here affects somebody in some locality. As elected representatives, and we are lucky to be in the position, we have a duty to serve the people. There are some who think that we have magic wands. We do not. However, we do our best to give people a platform in order that their voices can be heard. We are here to hear the concerns of groups such as the Owenacurra group to the effect that injustices have been done and have to be reversed.