Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The manner in which this has been addressed has been utterly shambolic and wholly unacceptable. I really hope this does not come back to bite us. The reason it is particularly important we get things right in this case is that we know the backdrop is information that is at best economical with the truth and at worst deliberate misinformation in previous attempts to resolve these issues. Forgive us if we have trust issues where the HSE is concerned. We think they are legitimate.

Yesterday when we had a meeting with the Minister of State we wanted to raise the issue of the draft order, the statutory instrument upon which the terms of reference were based. The first response we heard was that nobody else raised that issue of wanting to address the terms of reference. We had to commission legal opinion from Eames Solicitors to explain why the order had to be changed and that the terms of reference could be ultra viresif the Minister of State did not do that. We went on to submit changes to the terms of reference, none of which was included. No doubt the Minister of State will argue that the order and the terms of reference, in the manner in which they have been changed, will allow us address all the issues we have raised. That is possibly the case. I seriously hope it is but I found it ironic this morning that one of the amendments we specifically proposed was on the problem highlighted by the Committee on Public Accounts, the fact that earlier attempts to get to the truth, including by Ministers and Oireachtas committees, were deliberately thwarted by persons or persons unknown within the HSE.

It is a fact that information was put out that the Garda was blocking publication of the reports, not allowing even Ministers see them. We know now that is not true. I raised the case with the then Minister for Health, Deputy Varadkar, of a vulnerable person who remained in that facility until 2015. He efficiently asked whether anybody was being sent to this. He was cleverly told that the HSE was not sending anybody. It said it might be a private placement but that it was sorted. It was not sorted. The HSE did not care about the truth or the person at the centre of the incident. It was all for covering up for the organisation. The Devine report has been widely discredited. The terms of reference for the Resilience Ireland report were drafted by Arthur Cox, the legal team that represented the HSE in the Grace case. One could not make this up. Heads have to roll over this. I really hope that the changes have got it right and that we will be proved wrong but there is a lot hanging on it.

See this speech in context