Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I will table some technical amendments to the Bill on Committee Stage. Fine Gael, however, does not support the legislation because it does not meet the standards set out in our policies. The Government could have gone much further in this legislation but has clearly failed to do so. According to the Government, this Health Bill covers patient protection. It does not put the patient at the centre of health services, however, so how could we possibly support it? It is supposed to protect patients but it could have gone much further. The Government is verging on negligence in protecting patients. People have lost trust in the organisation the Minister established, the HSE, and they are quickly losing trust in her personally because she is failing on the core issue of patient safety.

If this Bill becomes law, patients will not be the focus of attention. After all the recent disastrous failures in Ireland's health service, such as the scandal at Leas Cross, the MRSA crisis, deficiencies in hospital hygiene and people left waiting on trolleys in accident and emergency departments, patient protection should be our number one priority, but that is clearly not the case in this legislation. The Government's maxim is to see what one can get away with, and that is becoming fatal when applied to the health service. The Minister for Health and Children should have attended the House bearing in mind people such as Mr. P. J. Walsh, who was clearly failed by the health system. Frances Sheridan, a nine year old girl, lost her life because of its failures. Mr. Peter McKenna, who was badly abused at Leas Cross, was also clearly failed by that system and by the Minister.

Recently there was the case of "Rosie", who had a hospital procedure cancelled on more than one occasion and has now been condemned to die of cancer by the failures of the Irish health care system. The coroner's report into the death of Mr. Valentine Ryan stated that he died from MRSA contracted through accessing hospital services. There were discussions about Mr. Henry Pollard, a man now probably forgotten by most Ministers, whose post mortem ascertained severe burns sustained from a radiator while in the care of a nursing home in County Kilkenny. That is what is happening in the health care system, which the Minister for Health and Children should correct and which the legislation should have addressed.

At Leas Cross, the HSE allowed old people to live in neglect and danger. That is where this legislation originated, but the Minister for Health and Children has clearly not lived up to her brief. Every day in accident and emergency departments, people are left waiting in Third World conditions. The Minister was supposed to deal with that but she has clearly not done so.

When patients leave such departments for the wards, their lives are continually threatened by the Government's failure to deal with hygiene, MRSA, clostridium difficile and all the bugs found in our hospitals each week. Nothing in this legislation deals with the MRSA scourge. It is strange that, as it has grown more prevalent in our health care system, other European countries have addressed the issue, in some cases quite successfully, while all we get is the same old bluster and by-lines to the effect that the Minister for Health and Children is truly interested in patient safety, when that is not the case. That is where the legislation fails.

It is clear that the Government lacks knowledge and clarity regarding what it wishes to achieve through this legislation and how it wishes to advance health services. It is clear that health is not its priority and that its only concern is staying in government. The legislation bears all the signs of having been rushed. It was inspired by a desire to establish a Health Information and Quality Authority, an office of the chief inspector of social services and a registration system for residential services for children in need of care and protection, people with a disability and older people. These are noble sentiments that remain until we read that the Bill contains exclusions and inclusions. Nursing homes and children are protected in specific cases. This is typical of how the Government produces legislation. It focuses on what is prominent in the media rather than what is needed in the health service.

There was a crisis concerning children, especially refugee children, who were trafficked into this country and escaped the protection of the HSE. The Minister is well aware that children went missing from a child care facility in Dublin. We have no idea where they have gone or what happened. Such an institution is not covered by this legislation. The legislation covers nursing homes and other specific institutions that have made media headlines rather than those to whom protection should be offered.

The entire mental health population will remain stigmatised because the Government sees fit to protect mental health patients under a different body. The Mental Health Commission is very good and I wish to apply the principles of the commission to the entire health service. We should not continue to marginalise and stigmatise mental health patients as though they are different from other patients in the health service. The Minister is institutionalising this separation in this Bill and I will refer to the consequences of this later.

Last week a commission on patient safety was established by the Minister because of the blatant omissions in this Bill. I commend the Minister on replicating Fine Gael's points in the policy document on a patient safety authority, published before Christmas, in most of the proposals for the commission. This is another example of the Government's laziness. The Minister may not have the will to alter the health care service but why did she not go further than stealing Fine Gael policy and implement it, as is needed? There is a growing sense that "Micheálitis" is continuing in the Department of Health and Children. Deputy Martin was the epitome of this affliction. He always had to have another report from another commission. The current Minister is acting in the same way on this important matter.

I am disappointed that certain lobby groups that represent patients are supporting this Bill. I call on patient advocacy groups, struggling to survive on donations, to stand up to the HSE and make their voices heard. They should not accept second best, such as this substandard legislation, for patient care.

Fine Gael published three policies before Christmas in the areas of mental health, controlling the accident and emergency crisis and establishing a patient safety authority. The media ignored the latter on the basis that it was not worthy of headlines on newspaper front pages or television news. Debating a patient safety authority in the Dáil will not grab the headlines either but the destruction and mayhem caused by the lack of a patient safety authority is headline news. Examples include the number of patients on trolleys, MRSA spiralling out of control and the appalling treatment of elderly people in Leas Cross. The Irish health care system needs this independent patient safety authority as proposed by Fine Gael and Labour in a joint policy document.

The World Health Organisation, WHO, has set up a commission under Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer of the NHS. The commission mentioned that the Opposition in Ireland has proposed a patient safety authority. The WHO is aware that the Opposition knows what is important in the health care service. What does the Government do but set up another commission? The Government is the laughing stock of the world, not just this country, because the issue could have been dealt with.

A number of issues have been left out of this legislation and the Minister is trying to wriggle away from them by talking about bringing forward whistleblowers' legislation next. Why has this not been put forward now?

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