Martin Conway (Fine Gael)

That was appropriate. It took a number of months for the terms of reference to be written. It was announced by the then Minister in the run-in to an election. The terms of reference took about six months to write, if I am not mistaken, and the report took another 12 months. The witnesses are great people and do fantastic work, but I have to agree with other colleagues that the genesis of what HIQA is proposing was proposed by most public reps. The detail is up to professionals but the conclusions it came to are those most public reps in the mid-west would have been able to put on the table without any report.

I have a concern about two things. First, HIQA did not have the planning and estates expertise. It had to assemble an expert group to do that work. That all takes time. It is about bonding and building relationships with people it would not have worked with before. The witnesses have said HIQA are not planning experts. Basically, HIQA's expertise is in the area of patient safety, which it does a phenomenal job at. I suggest this was a new departure for it in a very significant way. What it has proposed, as I said, is what most of us would have proposed.

The other concern I have about the report concerns options A, B and C. What I hoped would come from HIQA was a clear recommendation, not options. As Deputy Quinlivan and others said, we all co-signed a letter looking for the three options; the first two immediately and the third in a fairly quick timeframe. Why did HIQA choose to go down through options as opposed to just giving one overall clear recommendation, which was HIQA's considered view about what needs to happen and how it should be done in steps one, two and three? Even by using the language of options, HIQA is saying to go with one, two or three options. Which options? It was not the type of clear, distinct, specific recommendation I hoped would come from HIQA stating what needs to be done, and that it needs to be done now, as opposed to options. Will the witnesses elaborate on why HIQA did not give a very clear, specific, conclusive recommendation that this is what has to happen, full stop?