Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If the Minister asked the questions Deputy Wallace has asked and sought the answers to them, we would have an exercise in public accountability far better than anything we have done in our terms here. I agree that the political theatre this afternoon on all sides of the House has been utterly demoralising. This morning I was with front-line staff in the CervicalCheck unit in the Rotunda Hospital. They are fantastic people who provide a world class service. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that they are not waiting for Deputy Donnelly, me or anyone else here to come and clear the backlogs. What they would like is for the politicians to allow them to do their jobs, resource them adequately in order that they can do them and then listen to the advice and back off. If the Minister had listened to the advice of medical people, he would not have provided for the re-test and would have avoided all of the subsequent problems. I have been very balanced in my dealings with the Minister in terms of his responsibility for it and do not blame him personally or solely for it, but, contrary to his protestations that he did not know and did not act against medical advice, there is information in the public domain to say that statement is not true and in that sense that he may have misled the Dáil.

I take great offence at the Minister's statement that as one of his gestures to us, he is to provide for mandatory open disclosure, perhaps next year. We heard that last year from the Taoiseach. The saddest point is that Deputy Wallace and I had secured mandatory open disclosure over two years ago, but, with the help of Fianna Fáil and lobbied for by the heads of the Department of Health, that amendment was overturned. We could have had it in place. At its heart, the CervicalCheck crisis is one of open disclosure. I do not think the Minister is the only one to blame, but he is the one at the helm and the national children's hospital project will go down as one of the biggest scandals in the history of the State. Sadly, it is not history; we are living through the fiasco. If the Minister asks the questions Deputy Wallace asked and gets the answer that we can re-tender, we can have real accountability and justice once and for all for taxpayers.

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