Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

——or public representatives. The Minister and her colleagues in the Department and at Cabinet created what I have described previously as a quango from hell. In this case it is the monstrous quango of the HSE. She has removed democratic accountability in toto.

The Minister for Health and Children would rather listen to corporate executives in the private health business and her HSE has awarded the contract for cervical cancer tests to Quest Diagnostics, a US company that has an unacceptably high rate of errors and has been convicted of fraud.

Not only are our health services being privatised but jobs and services are being exported. Trained and trainee lab technicians in Ireland are being written off and many have had to emigrate to find work. Patients' tests are being sent out of the country to be dealt with by a questionable entity abroad. I shudder to think of the long-term consequences.

Another corporation, Fresenius, has been contracted by the HSE to carry out dialysis services. This corporation paid the biggest ever criminal and civil fraud fines to the US Government in 2000, totalling $500 million. The Fresenius scam involved fraudulent and fictitious blood-testing claims, kickbacks to dialysis facilities in return for blood testing contracts and fraudulent claims against state health insurers. This company will be based in Limerick.

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