Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this Topical Issue matter to be brought to the House for this very late debate. It is good to be here. I also express my gratitude to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, for coming to the Chamber and taking the issue. Her dedication to following through consistently on this matter must be astounding many officials in the Department, I am sure. They would probably like to see her being reshuffled to give themselves some respite. That is probably a sad reflection of where the Department is at, unfortunately.

The governance and safeguarding report into CHO 1 published by HIQA last Friday has confirmed many of the points I have been making on the handling of the Brandon case and the subsequent Brandon report in the public domain for past year and for the past six years through my interactions with HSE management. Importantly, HIQA states in the report, and I have reiterated it many times throughout this saga, that no fault lay with the front-line staff in the centres and that safeguarding concerns were being responded to appropriately at that level. It is important to reiterate this. I know the Minister of State has done so at every opportunity and it is important for the staff and the residents.

As HIQA acknowledges, the problems are in areas of communication, governance and oversight of safeguarding procedures, especially follow-up and sustaining positive change. It points to this occurring at middle management, regional and national management levels. The one point in the report I take issue with is HIQA's assertion that this was prevalent only in the Donegal area of CHO 1. It highlights the Sligo area of CHO 1 as something of an exemplar. If there are problems with the identification, reporting and escalation of incidents of a safeguarding nature in the CHO 1 area, then to my mind it is hard to come to the conclusion the report did, which is that it is only in Donegal. I believe that if an in-depth audit was carried out nationwide, it would find similar systemic failures in management, reporting and oversight, and probably not just confined to disability services either. The previous Topical Issue debate gave us an example of this.

The problems all stem from a basic resource issue. Front-line staff are being asked to do a job for which there is often no capacity. Budgets are dictated from the top down and woe betide the local managers who would be brave enough to raise their hand and say that they cannot do the job with what they have been given. It is an ingrained institutionalised attitude found in management across all levels. It is not a public sector problem; it is a management problem. The other major institutionalised attitude found in management is to admit nothing, bury the problems at all costs and save the company first. Sadly, this is the way it works. It is borne out of an arrogance at senior management level and filters down through the layers unspoken, where people know that to raise their head above the parapet will do their career prospects no good. We only have to look at the performance of the Secretary General of the Minister of State's Department at committee this week to recognise it. It was out of touch and privileged but typical of many at that level, unfortunately. That is the problem we see across the board. This problem can be seen in what has happened in the Brandon case and others. We can say it looks good as a performance at a committee meeting but when it feeds down through the programme to ground level then people get hurt. These people are constantly neglected and it is a real problem. I know the Minister of State is active and will try to sort it out and I pay tribute to her for it. If it were not for her and the work she has done we would not have got this far. I would have been shouting into a vacuum and not getting anywhere. It is important that we raise this issue.

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