Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

This is an important point. We talk about giving nurses additional permission to prescribe. Doctors already have this, but many consultants in our hospitals work almost as independent contractors. There is an unmerciful amount of freedom. At question time in this House before Christmas, the Tánaiste stated quite categorically that she was completely against whistleblower's legislation. What led to the Neary inquiry was the failure to communicate what was happening because people were afraid of what might happen to them. There must be a carrot and stick approach to this and that is why we support whistleblower's legislation in the first place. This is the stick approach which makes people responsible. There were doctors, nurses, midwives and administrative staff working in this hospital. The Minister of State has just said that if they know something, they should do something about it. They are not protected if they do something about it because we have no whistleblower's legislation. We must make people responsible. If an inordinate number of elderly patients, for instance, die on a ward where certain staff members are on duty, sometimes there is a tendency not to comment on it.

The Neary case is not the first and will not be the last disaster in our health services, but unless we have some mechanism to make people responsible, or at least give them the protection of whisteblower's legislation, we will have this sort of thing. There is no protection for the patient unless we do something like this. I would just like to know why the Minister of State cannot do it.

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