Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Historically, when there is a difficulty in this country, the political establishment and institutions have morphed together to conspire against the citizen. That is something I have noticed more in the past couple of months as I reflect on issues. We seem to lose track of why we were elected and how we are here to represent the people rather than conspire with institutions in silence.

There is an unrelated issue which involves other legislation. I listened to a woman this morning who had a child on 19 June 1987 at Holles Street hospital. That was one year before Ray Houghton scored the goal against England and not long after Band Aid; it was not the time of Charles Dickens. The child was handed to a social worker, but that woman cannot find any record of the child or any details whatever. This was in the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street. It is completely unacceptable.

I will come back to the three issues I raised earlier, particularly the list of perinatal deaths across the board, when the Minister first became aware of the issue and whether there are other similar issues evident. With regard to the implementation of reports, there were 27 recommendations following the tragic death of Tanya McCabe, and when HIQA investigated the Savita Halappanavar case it found that many hospitals had not implemented those recommendations. I have tabled questions on that issue over a period.

In recent correspondence the HSE has requested all hospitals to undertake a self-assessment against a HIQA recommendation resulting from the Galway case, with reference to the recommendations made in the report on the death of Tanya McCabe. It is unclear from the letter whether they have all been implemented, but I do not believe they have been. Will the Minister tell us at some stage whether all maternity hospitals have implemented the 27 recommendations, in addition to the ones made following the Galway case?

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