Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 6 February 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion
Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I will get to that. I share the Deputy's frustrations and it is a reason for having an external review.

I refer to the role of the governance structures and why there was not what I am politely calling the early warning system, to which my Secretary General and the HSE have referred. Even board members have reflected on it. The questions of why flags were not raised earlier and who decided they did not need to be raised earlier are questions that those producing the PwC report absolutely need to consider.

As Deputy Kelly knows, the timeline for the GMP process kept getting pushed out. It was taking longer to complete the process. As part of that process, there were commercial negotiations ongoing and, therefore, perhaps a great deal of uncertainty as to where the figures would end up. I do not think the PwC report, which I do not want to pre-empt, is needed to suggest clearly that something was badly lacking in terms of early warning.