John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

I would like to deal with the provision of information by the HSE, specifically with regard to responses to parliamentary questions. Other speakers have also raised the issue. The information provided in responses is almost misinformation or no information. This area needs to be revisited. Money has been spent on setting up the particular unit to provide information.

Parliamentary questions asked in the House generally relate to a specific issue such as the case of a particular patient, the lack of a service, the issue of a medical card and other normal issues commonly brought to the attention of every Deputy in their clinics. We want information provided in this area for patients who are already within the system. I cannot understand how having gone through the parliamentary question system and put staff in the House to the bother of going through the process of placing the question, there is little or no information in the reply or we are told to tell patients to return to their general practitioner if their health deteriorates. It is unacceptable that an organisation as large and well funded as the HSE should take this course of action in response to a Deputy acting on behalf of a constituent or hospital or seeking funding for some project.

The HSE is affected negatively by the old culture of the health boards where there was a cloak of secrecy around what was going on. It needs to understand that the public wants to know what is going on and wants to be able to get information, whether from a website or by way of parliamentary question. As parliamentarians, we should be able to scrutinise the activities of the HSE. This is done in part by the Committee of Public Accounts, PAC, but there is not sufficient in-depth examination in the context of the direction taken by the HSE or the policy being implemented. The HSE must be more accountable to the House in order to be more transparent and to regain credibility in the eyes of the public.

The HSE route is the correct one to take, but I am concerned about the executive's management structure. Before being interrupted by Deputy Stagg, I was making the point that like local government, there are not enough administrative professionals in the HSE to ensure the correct systems are in place and that they deliver information efficiently and assist consultants and patients to ensure more transparency. The PAC gains that transparency when it examines the accounts, but these accounts are only figures after the event. In the context of our work, we need information provided as the story unfolds.

I can give many examples of occasions when I had to intervene for patients, for example for patients waiting for a bed. On occasion a patient waiting for a long time gets a letter in the post to say an appointment has been secured, but for 2008 or 2009. What good is that? I believe this occurs because of bad administration. Another recent example of bad administration occurred when a patient travelled from Kilkenny to Waterford Regional Hospital to have a cataract removed and was brought to have his knee X-rayed. A further example is that of a patient who was called to Waterford Regional Hospital for 8 a.m., but was turned away because they could not see him and was asked to come the following Thursday at 8 a.m. He did, but he had still not been examined by 4 p.m. He left because there was nobody to tell him whether he should stay or go.

Should we point the finger at the Minister in this regard or should we admit that such incidents illustrate a serious lapse in terms of administration?

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