Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)

I agree with my colleague that the Minister for Health should be here tonight to stand over a decision she has made. She should be here to answer our questions. The Minister for Health should be here to tell us why pregnant women in our region are going to be forced to travel to access maternity care and have their babies. She should be here tonight to tell us why she and the HSE have made a decision that essentially means we have issues here, we are going to do reviews, we are going to implement the recommendations and then we are not going to restore at any point in the future, full maternity services at Portiuncula.

In 2018, the Walker report followed an independent external review of maternity services at Portiuncula, which was then published. A total of 154 recommendations followed and those recommendations were not implemented. Seven years later, we have some of the very same issues identified again. The response of the HSE was to not let it fix this or let it do whatever it had to do to make this safe and support women in this region. Instead, the response of the HSE was that it has implemented the Walker report. It was to pretend it had implemented it in full and to tell us repeatedly it had implemented it in full. Just last week, I received a letter from the hospital manager who stated all 154 recommendations had been implemented and independently verified as implemented by both HIQA and an independent national HSE team. On the very same day, Bernard Gloster told the health committee that to be clear, it would be not reconcilable for him or someone to say the Walker report was implemented in full. He said that on the same day.

I have come here tonight to ask why, in the case of Portiuncula, a decision was made not to bother to do everything necessary to ensure women across a number of counties in our region get the care they deserve at Portiuncula Hospital.

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