Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will ask the question again. How will this improve the service? The service is being taken from the HSE and given to a third party. In that way, the HSE can blame the third party when the service does not work. That is the only change here. How does that benefit service users? The Minister of State has said that he does not get involved in day-to-day issues but surely the Department of Health has an interest in how the service is being provided and how the new arrangements will work. The only thing this will do is to provide cover for the HSE so that when things go wrong and are managed badly, it can blame the service provider. That is the only difference here. The Department of Health must take an interest in how the HSE provides services and there is no way that this represents an improvement for either the staff or the service users.

See this speech in context