John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too offer my condolences to the family of Tom Power. I believe that if he had taken ill on a Friday morning instead of a Sunday, he would have received cardiac intervention at University Hospital Waterford, which is about ten minutes from his home.

The Minister of Health and I have differed on the Herity report on a number of occasions. I respect that. He knows my firmly-held views that the calculations of the population were flawed and that it was incomplete on the basis that the experienced concerns and service needs of the consultants in south Tipperary and Wexford were not sought, despite the fact that there was a comprehensive input from the consultants in Cork. Crucially, in the context of the death of Mr. Tom Power, the review did not address life and death clinical risk and safety concerns. Pre-dating the Herity review, the HSE itself identified the lack of the second cath lab at UHW as being an extreme clinical risk under the HSE risk register. That status was downgraded by an unknown person in the HSE prior to Dr. Herity commencing his review. After the publication of the Herity report, further suggestions of interference in the review process emerged. I believe that Dr. Herity was given flawed and biased information prior to commencing his work. A briefing note prepared by unit 3 of the Department of Health explicitly stated that the second cath lab was not a priority. It is my belief that the interference has continued.

I commend the Minister on the work that he is trying to do at present by formally approving the deployment of a mobile cath lab on 8 May. However, it was not until 12 June - five weeks later - that the Department of Health formally instructed the HSE to proceed to tender and notify the management of UHW. For five weeks, I believe that a ministerial order was completely ignored. For five weeks, the Minister's express instructions were treated with utter contempt by civil servants. This is not fair to the Minister. I believe that the HSE is a law unto itself and that unknown person or persons within the HSE are determined to put every obstacle possible in front of the expansion of the cardiac services in UHW. I believe there is an agenda playing out that the extension of services at UHW has nothing to do with the clinical need.

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