Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

Some of those were completed this year. How can we expect confidence to be restored?

I hope the Government will take some of these points on board. We need more clarity on the content of the report, although Judge Harding Clark did a very good job. She highlighted many things that happened in the past and made proposals for the future.

Concerns remain over the theft of the charts, which the Garda must pursue, and the authorisation of the consultants to enter the hospital. They seemed to act as if they owned the hospital and they made no contact with management. I wish to know who sent them in. Was it the Medical Defence Union? On what basis did they operate? It is vital this is cleared up because it shows the power the consultants had to dictate matters.

As with the example I gave to the Tánaiste, which only happened within the past 18 months, and I am sure there are others, these things are happening in the health service because of a lack of robust management. What the Tánaiste regards as reform of the health service is no such thing. There is nothing about the HSE that gives me confidence that the health service has been genuinely reformed from a management point of view. Much more needs to be done. It is interesting that Dr. Ambrose McLoughlin, who is named in the report, no longer works for the health service. He was a brave and committed administrator but he has left the health service.

There are issues around administration and management that need to be examined and the Government must become more proactive. My sympathies lie with the victims and I am disgusted that fellow doctors have been involved in such practices. Just as we rightly condemned individual members of the clergy in light of the Ferns Report so individuals who had a role in this must be exposed and condemned.

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