Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her frank and honest response. It is quite stark that a Minister of State has to come into the House and make a speech like that in response to this issue. This should never have got to this stage and it should have been dealt with long before now. It is a serious problem when the HSE behaves like this towards a Government. We all want this to be dealt with and resolved and for the families to be protected.

It is also vitally important that a future whistleblower can feel confident that he or she can come forward and have his or her concerns listened to. I thank the Minister of State. I hope the HSE is listening to this and that it will respond now because this has gone on for too long and it cannot be allowed to continue. It is mind-boggling that the Government of the day cannot get answers from the HSE on this and cannot get a resolution to it. That is shocking and maybe it signals that there is something more wrong in an arm of the State. I know the HSE has some semblance of independence but there has to be something wrong when it will not respond in a proper and timely way. There are also other organs of the State that have questions to answer around how this was dealt with and that all has to be examined.

I want to pay tribute to the whistleblower, who has paddled their own canoe on this for years and has tried to raise it solely from the point of view of trying to improve a service and benefit the service users. That has to be commended and I would like to pay tribute to the whistleblower for that because it is important. I thank the Minister of State for her frank response. I know this will probably keep going because we will have to try to get answers from the HSE. I hope the HSE is listening to this debate and that it will come forward because that is the right, honest and decent thing to do.

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