Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 4, line 20, after "functions" to insert the following:

"including political accountability to the Oireachtas".

As I mentioned earlier, the explanatory memorandum describes the purpose of the Bill as strengthening "the legislative base for the provision of information by the Health Service Executive to the Minister for Health and Children so as to enhance the Minister's ability to fulfil his or her role and functions (including political accountability to the Oireachtas)". Those words "political accountability to the Oireachtas" are nowhere to be found in the Bill. The approach taken by Government to the health service and to the child care services by the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, and the Minister of State, Deputy John Moloney, is that their job is to articulate policy and the job of the HSE is to deliver a service. They have been very good at articulating policy and where there have been failures, it has been in the service delivery.

We are constantly told in this House that the Minister is not politically accountable for the delivery of service. There is a disconnect between what the explanatory memorandum says the Bill is about and what the Bill actually does. If, as the Bill appears to do, there is now going to be a requirement on the HSE to keep Ministers and Government informed of how service delivery is being affected and where there are problems in the context of political accountability, the Minister should be accountable to the Dáil to inform it of that information.

We need to get away from the ridiculous situation that has arisen whereby, when a Deputy in any party tables a parliamentary question about the health service or the child care services, the reply he is given is that it is not a matter that falls within the functions of the Minister and that the Minister will inform the HSE, which will write to the Deputy. The HSE may write within a month, two months or six months. Sometimes one may have to table two or three further parliamentary questions to find out why the HSE has not responded. If it has responded, too often the response is evasive.

Until the HSE was created the Minister for Health and Children responded to issues relating to service delivery in this House. I was Fine Gael spokesperson for health for three years from 1998 through to 2000. When I tabled a parliamentary question about problems with service delivery, I got a substantive answer, which is as it should be. That is the way it should be following the enactment of this Bill because there should then be no information that the Minister cannot obtain other than information that may relate to preserving the confidentiality of the name of an individual in certain circumstances. However, there should be no information that is not accessible to the Minister in his or her role of being politically accountable to this House.

I seek to amend section 40C to insert a reference to political accountability. Where the Bill states, "The Minister may, where he or she considers it necessary in the public interest to do so for the performance of his or her functions", I wish to add "including political accountability to the Oireachtas". I hope the Minister will take that amendment on board because there is a democratic deficit in the manner in which we are currently operating, to the detriment of the public. This Bill must do more than simply provide a channel of communication between the Minister and HSE that, until now, has been either closed or defective. That channel must be opened to the extent that the Minister can account to this House for the running of our health service and children's services. My amendment will facilitate that.

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