Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Who is responsible for this matter? She cannot tell the House that the health boards decided that they would embark on this mission. That is not the way it happened. Why does the Tánaiste continue to state that if only she had known about all the differences in practice between the 11 health boards this would not have happened and that this justifies the HSE? How does it justify the HSE? If the health boards were still there, whatever their defects, it is sure that the alarm bells would have gone off before they went off in this particular case, some seven years after the idea was originated. I am sure all of the Tánaiste's colleagues behind her agree with that.

Everybody who was ever near a health board knows that there were different practices in different health boards, different rates of pay, different systems and so on. Everybody knew that before this project was embarked on. Surely all of that should have been regularised before such an engagement took place. The Tánaiste has not dealt with the question of responsibility.

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