Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Drip, drip, drip go the revelations adding to the scandal around the cervical smear issue, which gives us a glimpse into the dysfunction in the HSE that needs to be radically addressed. This motion deals with all aspects of this problem and proposes Sláintecare and moving towards a single-tier universal health service as the answer. I agree with that and support the motion but I really want to focus, as have others, on the CervicalCheck scandal and what that tells us about the problems we face in delivering a health service that actually adequate for the needs of the people who depend on it. The way in which these revelations are drip dripping out is beyond outrageous at this point. It makes this scandal worse. It is extraordinary that the Minister gave Tony O'Brien permission to take up a job when the health service is in the state it is in. It is beyond comprehension. I do not care whether it was five hours or five minutes per month, although it is a bit to hard to credit when he was going to get €65,000 and €180,000 of stock options in a private US company for it. He is doing this while the health service is falling apart and the Minister gave him permission to do it last summer. I find that extraordinary. The Minister should explain how he thought this was appropriate when everybody in the country has known for several years that the health service is in meltdown. How could the Minister think that the head of the health service could do a nixer on the side? It is beyond belief. Mr. O'Brien then adds insult to injury by saying he will not turn up for a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health or the Committee of Public Accounts this week to explain himself.

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