Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

I welcome the guests. I have had a placard up in my office all my political career. It is called "No to the Hanly Report", which I carried through the streets of Nenagh in the noughties. It is probably the reason I ended up in here, if I went back far enough. I do not think there is any topic I have spoken on more in my political career than this. Obviously, I am not going to repeat it, but I have spoken publicly about my own family and the issues we have had in relation to University Hospital Limerick, UHL, and health services.

The previous contribution by Senator Conway was excellent. He actually took a number of my questions. I have no understanding of why HIQA was asked to do this. It was a political decision to get through a general election. Dr. Gerry Burke, who is the former clinical lead in UHL, more or less wrote this report a decade ago. He went on "Prime Time". He went through the statistics. He demonstrated almost everything that is in this report, and he retired after it because of the backlash. By the way, this is no reflection on the witnesses. They were asked to do a job. I understand that. Now, however, given that HIQA has taken in a whole new elevation of work, it is probably going to be asked to do a whole range of similar types of work. Therefore, its actual modus operandi, reason for existing and terms of reference as an organisation will have to expand. The witnesses might let us know how many total man hours this took. What did HIQA do to replace those man hours internally? Who did the work that everyone who was working on this was not able to do because it took up so much time? How much did it cost? They might supply that to the committee, if that is all right, Chair. I do not expect them to have the answers. Unless they have them-----