Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I join my colleagues in offering my condolences and those of my party to the relatives and friends of the Dunne family on the poignant tragedy that has been visited upon them and their community. In particular I offer condolences to Mrs. Mary Dunne, who lost a husband and two sons in recent weeks.

I refer the Taoiseach to today's Order Paper, in particular to the instruments laid before the House under the "Statutory" heading — I refer in particular to Nos. 27 and 28. Document No. 28, for example, is a policy direction issued on 14 July 2005 by the Minister for Health and Children to the HSE to begin a private hospital building programme on the grounds of public hospitals.

The reason these notices are on the Order Paper today is that a discovery was made in my office that the Minister had not complied with the Health Act 2004. Section 10 of that Act requires the Minister, when issuing a policy direction to the HSE, to ensure that within 21 days of issuing the direction, a copy of that direction is laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. That appears in section 10 of the Act. The Minister was required to do that but she failed to do so. When I brought it to her attention last week, the response was an apology from the Department and a claim that it was an administrative oversight.

How is the biggest and most central plank in the Government's health services strategy, to build a number of super private clinics on the lands of public hospitals, an administrative oversight? Why did the Minister fail to comply with the law? We now know that if this is her central plank, she did not comply with the 2004 Act and she did not tell the HSE.

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