Mr. Paul Reid:

I was going to come to that. Specifically, in relation to the person who raised the issues, they are of very significant concern to me. There is a process in place for people to come forward with those issues and we encourage that. That is the subject of a very formal process under the relevant legislation that we are continuing. That process has commenced and the person who relayed those concerns is directly engaged as part of the process.

That is a very formal process that we triggered and I cannot comment on that in any particular detail but I did comment.

The Deputy, like many other Deputies at this Oireachtas committee and others, has quite rightly raised the issue of accountability. She asked me what we have done about it. In the very early stages of my tenure in this role, we brought a paper to the HSE board and looked at the issue of accountability. There are a few strands to what happened that we must strengthen. First, when we carry out significant reviews into what happened, or into the harm that happened to some people using our services, we tend to go into a cycle that involves carrying out the review and assessing whether somebody was at fault for what happened. We go about it sequentially. We are looking at that process to make sure we do it.

Very briefly, accountability in the HSE and the public service is a function of a range of issues. First, is the performance management process in place? We have to strengthen our game in that regard. Second, are there very clear lines, roles and responsibilities across the service? We are doing very significant work on that. Third, when incidents go wrong, what is our process if a discipline process has to be taken? Fourth, there is the whole issue around regulation. This involves working through the regulatory health grades that we have and the right regulatory bodies when things go wrong. There are a range of issues that tackle accountability. I know that publicly it comes down to whether someone is fired or held responsible, but we have to take a very multidisciplinary approach.