Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

There is no tension between me and any part of the health system. There is a report of an engagement in relation to one of the voluntary hospitals and the Chair and there is a difference of opinion that was aired in the media. My broad sense is that there is exceptionally good work being done in voluntary hospitals. Many of them, for example, have addressed their trolley situations in exceptionally good ways and are to be commended on that.

I think there is a difference of understanding in relation to the role of the board and the obligations of the board, who take their obligations under the Companies Act very seriously. Of course, the first obligation of any company director is to comply with the law of the land and to comply with the direction of the funders and shareholders, where that is appropriate within certain sectors. It is fair to say in the same way we have had the Health Information Bill, there has been a difficulty of engagement over different issues, whether it is sharing of patient data or the adoption of certain systems. There are already media reports of voluntary hospitals buying other systems that are not IFMS and it is the taxpayer who is paying for those as well so there simply has to be an alignment. It is fair to say I would not be doing this if there had not been a reluctance of some kind. That reluctance has been expressed directly to the CEO of the HSE, less so directly to me, but obviously the CEO and the chair of the HSE are working at my direction on Deputies' behalf and there has been a specified and written reluctance in relation to that. I have written directly to the CEOs or chairs. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, has supported that so there is very clear political direction on this and it really is up to those entities that are entirely publicly funded. They are staffed by public servants who will of course not just get public service salaries but public service pensions. They are entirely public servants. It is up to them to adopt the systems that in a small country help us to have visibility over how tax payers money is used, to have consistency and also better opportunities for realising savings and efficiencies through better procurement management.

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