Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for the reply. Niall Hunter, the editor of irishhealth.com, stated:

A HIQA spokesman confirmed to irishhealth.com that the safety body was no longer proactively going into hospitals and checking on their hygiene standards at this time. "We have to prioritise our work as best we can," he said.

It is clear that HIQA, which is statutorily set up to give information and ensure that quality controls are in place in hospitals, is not able to carry out its statutory functions. No audit of hospital hygiene has been carried out in any hospital in Ireland in over a year. Will the Minister accept that, in effect, it is putting patients' lives at risk if the body statutorily obliged to carry out audits is not carrying them out? Will he further agree that in the context of the workload put on HIQA there is now a need to ensure that its basic functions are upheld and that it would begin to carry out audits on hygiene in our hospitals throughout the country?

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