Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)

I appreciate that the Bill before us will provide for revisions to corporate governance arrangements within the HSE. I welcome this. If ever an agency needed governance reforms, it was the HSE. There have been too many incidents of governance failures at this agency. I refer to the CervicalCheck scandal, which revealed 162 women were not informed about missed abnormalities in their smear tests; the 2023 nursing home review, which revealed serious governance lapses after a resident was raped by a staff member in the HSE nursing home; and we will all remember the treatment of the whistleblowers who faced suspension and disciplinary action for raising concerns of financial misconduct and care home abuses. However, I have concerns that this Bill will do little to implement meaningful change in respect of its stated aim of exercising the highest standards of prudent and effective financial and budgetary management. If the Government really wanted to enhance budgetary governance, it would introduce the multi-annual funding framework it promised in the programme for Government. Sinn Féin will be tabling amendments on Committee Stage to provide for multi-annual funding and for staffing frameworks, because that is the right thing to do. This is the only way proper planning can take place and efficiencies can be made.

I take this opportunity to ask the Minister for Health to please address persistent staffing issues across the HSE. The Government claims the recruitment embargo in the HSE has been lifted since last July but there have been no positive effects in Mayo. I met representatives of the INMO last week again. In fact, I have very direct experience of being in the emergency department in Mayo University Hospital in the last number of weeks. I commend the staff there for the job they are doing but they are expected to do that job even though there are not enough of them. I know the Minister wants to answer me back and I know she cannot in this situation. She should please let me tell her that there are not enough staff members.

See this speech in context