Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

She has all these powers under the Health Act 2004. She is the ultimate authority for the health service under the Ministers and Secretaries Acts. The people with whom she was struggling are well-paid officers of the State for whom she approved bonuses in addition to the salaries they are already paid, presumably on the basis that they were doing a good job. However, she was unable to get basic answers from them when they were needed. The clinic which 97 women were told to attend last Saturday was arranged at short notice, after the Labour Party had tabled this motion for debate in the Dáil. It was organised in such a hurry that the women could not be guaranteed the privacy they deserved as they turned up. Although three months have passed since the Portlaoise crisis arose, we have not yet seen a report into what happened there. We have not yet received an explanation. The Minister, Deputy Gormley, has admitted that there was incompetence in Portlaoise.

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