Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her response. I echo her calls for the HSE to publish the Brandon report even at this late stage. Its constant excuses as to why it cannot publish it do not stand up at this stage and do not wash at all. I think everybody knows that. The HSE probably knows it but will never admit it.

While this HIQA report is good, HIQA is not in the clear itself. It has been compliant to a large extent with what has gone on in Donegal over the years. I am glad to see it has come out now and is doing its job. I hope this continues because it is vitally important. The one thing that needs to be said and cannot be said often enough is that this is not a Donegal issue. It is an issue for the national body. It says in the report that it goes right up to national management. One of the things that struck me as we were approaching the publication of the report was that what happened in Donegal was supposedly not being covered by management in Dublin but then all of a sudden when it went to Dublin, everything changed. We must get to the bottom of what actually happened. I am loath to think that this would be contained to Donegal because we have seen this in the past. The Minister of State will probably remember the Morris tribunal regarding what was happening in An Garda Síochána. The response from officialdom at that time was that it was confined to Donegal and that it was only a Donegal issue. To our cost, we saw that it did not just happen in Donegal. We must make sure that this is not the case in the future. National management must be addressed.

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