Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I want to stand reassured but I do not take reassurance. Do you know what I do? I take the reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff. We read them and then we highlight what has been highlighted to us in order to get reassurance that the procedures and practices are not just in place but working. Clearly they were not working and there is nobody here today to tell me why the new CEO was not aware of this report which has ongoing consequences. Even the NTPF is mentioned in that. Ms Nugent did not highlight that and she did not know about it. It took the media and all of this. I will just park that for the moment.

This is a shocking report. I will not go into whether it should be published in full. What I have is utterly shocking. Even the training was stopped because the culture was so toxic. How can CHI have openness and accountability? There was a high turnover of staff, no trainees were allowed, training stopped, there was a bullying and toxic culture and Ms Nugent does not know about that and was not made aware of it. Really?

How many reports are there now arising from that toxic culture and failure of governance? I will help the witnesses. We have lots of internal reports, we have HIQA and then we have the report on the unnecessary hip surgery - I cannot pronounce the word - and we are waiting on a third report. Is that right? What is the nature of that report?