Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not the only one who fails to understand this; the former Minister of State with special responsibility for primary care and some of the Minister's Cabinet colleagues also failed to understand it. It is not that Billy Kelleher is the only person in this House who cannot understand the criteria the Minister decided to use to select certain sites for primary care centres that were outside the matrix that was used previously - that is, the deprivation index. If the deprivation index is used to select 20 high-priority centres and then, all of a sudden, the entire set of criteria changes to include factors such as population and locations of other health centres, the process is undermined from start to finish. If the first 20 centres are chosen based on one index and the others are based on the Minister's own index, clearly the Minister has not prioritised the key factors as outlined in the original index.

It is not that I am trying to find anything untoward, but it is quite evident that there was not a transparent and open process in the awarding of commercial advantage to individuals by the State. That is of major concern to many people, including the former Minister of State, Deputy Róisín Shortall, who resigned because of it. Does the Minister agree that this issue does not sit well with many people, other than me, on this side of the House?

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