Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Does the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have a chart or an estimate of exactly how much extra money the Department of Health got between last year’s and this year’s budget process, as well as the additional allocations during the year?

We ended up this year with Supplementary Estimates where an additional €400 million was given to the Department of Health. By any criteria, whether in the public or private sector, the figures are utterly astonishing. The Revised Estimate for the Department of Health stands at €17 billion. The Estimate for the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, which used to be significantly larger than health, is now just over €20 billion. At the same time, the total allocation to the education Vote, which we all agree is vital to the country’s future, has fallen back. It is miles behind the Department of Health.

What needs to be done? There is the Department of Health and the HSE, yet we are in an appalling situation. I listened to people talk about the children's hospital. What about the maternity hospitals and what will happen to women giving birth to babies in the three hospitals in the Dublin area and other hospitals right around the country? Recently, the master of the Rotunda Hospital said in public that the hospital’s facilities are dangerous for seriously ill babies. It is difficult to fathom what exactly is the role of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in all of this. I know it does not have clinical responsibility. However, in 2015, when the current Taoiseach was the Minister for Health, he announced, on behalf of the Rotunda Hospital, that it was going to move to a new campus on the west side of Dublin, adjacent to Connolly hospital, where, by and large, a significant proportion of the women giving birth are living close to the motorways serving the hospital. The same argument was made for the children's hospital. In the intervening years, the Rotunda has got, according to its master, more concerned about the care it can provide. At the same time, the question of a new maternity facility has been stalled. It is unbelievable.

Take the case of the national maternity hospital. Is somebody in the Irish foreign service or the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on to the Vatican to ask it when it will make its decision as to whether it will be hands off from the governance of the hospital to allow the new national maternity hospital to commence? Is this something that has to be thought about? Will we hear in a year or two from whoever has the go-ahead from the Pope to be a decision maker on this? I see the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform having an overall managerial role to be able to intervene critically.

In fairness to the Chairman, he asked a significant question for everybody who has the honour to be a Deputy or Senator. What on God's earth is going on with the fob system? Why are we reading about this in the newspapers? The Chairman made a plea to Mr. Watt because it is the reputation of public service that is under challenge when one hears that somebody can pop in and out on Friday night or Monday morning. We do not have a clue. Maybe the person sleeps here for the weekend and then heads off. We have no idea. The point is that when public confidence is lost in institutions, it is democracy that is damaged and, therefore, our particular role as elected representatives. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has oversight of all staffing. I am not aware that any Deputy has had any involvement in the design of the fobbing system. We just got our instructions as to what we were to do. Most people followed that honourably. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has the oversight management role but, again, it does not have any oversight.

When Professor Fergal Malone, master of the Rotunda, says that sick babies will die, does somebody in the Department pick up the phone to him and say they are distressed to read that today? Does it have to go all the way through the HSE, over to the Department of Health, down to whoever opens the letters in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and back up again? We seem to be in some kind of communication system. Maybe it is all done by email but it sounds like it is done by pony and trap. There is just no reaction to crises which are building up.

Most of us here have had experience of difficult years when everybody pulled together to get better outcomes for the country. We got to a certain plateau and then it all seemed to fall apart, be it in housing, health or the new childcare scheme. I am glad to hear people are signing up to the new childcare scheme. On the ground, however, many parents are confused by what they are asked to do.

Does Mr. Watt regularly meet the Taoiseach to tell him how the public service is performing? Does he attend a Cabinet committee? The previous Taoiseach had a practice of having Cabinet committee meetings on Monday once a month. From parliamentary replies, it would seem the Cabinet committee system has fallen back. How often does Mr. Watt meet the Taoiseach? Is his communication via the Secretary to the Government? We are beset by problems which are not about lack of money but about the failure of the issues to come together, along with the failure of people to be able to get reasonable answers.