Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Like others, I would like to say how brave people like Vicky Phelan have been in dealing with this and related matters. The Taoiseach spoke about the systems the Government is putting in place, some of which sound fine. However, it is very difficult to understand others unless the Taoiseach is more forthcoming with the details of what the Government is proposing. Does the Taoiseach have clarity at this point about the lines of communications between CervicalCheck and the HSE? In his answer, he alluded to the fact that he now intends to reinstate both the HSE board and regional boards. From some of what the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health have said, my understanding is that these boards will have executive chairpersons. In particular, the HSE will have a high-level executive chairperson. That is a major change. I struggle to understand how the incoming CEO of the HSE, who will obviously be a full-time executive, will deal with that. If there are also to be regional boards, and there is a lot to be said for the regionalisation and localisation of significant elements of the HSE, is the Taoiseach really proposing a whole set of executive chairpersons along with a chief executive and about 30 very senior subordinate executives to the HSE in his plan? Could he share the plan with us? Better still, could he get somebody to draw us a graph of what this proposed structure will look like? From my experience of structures, it seems that the Taoiseach is almost overreacting with a top-heavy structure that will be almost impossible to operate. The leadership issue relating to motivating the staff in the HSE seems to be entirely absent.

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