Results 1,161-1,180 of 10,459 for speaker:Bertie Ahern

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I want to share time with Deputy Grealish, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Smith, and Deputy Curran.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The suffering of all of the women who have been caught up in the events arising from breast cancer services in Portlaoise, and indeed in other places, has been immense. It did not take graphic accounts of the anxiety, uncertainty, disbelief and anger expressed by a number of the women concerned for the rest of us to understand the enormity of the distress that has been created.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: For that, they deserve the fullest apology. The Minister, Deputy Harney, has already expressed her deep regret that this happened and I readily join with her in expressing my profound regret for what they have gone through.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I want to focus my remarks this evening on two issues in my limited time, namely, the policy response of the Government to the challenge of developing world class cancer services and the issue of accountability for what has gone wrong. In the first place, I am proud of this Government's record in the development of cancer services. We have created a blueprint for the development of a...

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: We have listened to the experts and, in the person of Professor Tom Keane, we have drafted in a world class expert to help us to realise our strategy. With particular reference to breast cancer, we are extending the nationalscreening programme, BreastCheck, and we are backing the strategy to create centres of excellence that will organise, plan, deliver and support the treatment of women...

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I want to turn now to the question of accountability for what happened. "Accountability" is a word that can be misused, sometimes deliberately. Fundamentally, it means being required to give an account or an explanation of something that has happened.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: In that sense, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, is accountable and has indeed given an account, both in this House last night and on other occasions and more generally to the public through the media.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: She has given a full account of all of the information at her disposal about what happened——

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: ——but also on the very effective and immediate steps that were taken to respond to the misdiagnosis problem.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The Minister is not the only one accountable. The Health Service Executive, its board and its management are also accountable for their direct management and oversight of the system.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Individual clinicians and health managers are also accountable for the actions they took or did not take.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: In the case of the HSE, they are accountable to the Minister and, thus, to the Government in addition to Dáil Éireann.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Staff of the HSE have their own accountability structures and clinicians are accountable within the framework of regulation of medical practice to their peers, leaving aside any legal liabilities that might arise. A more relevant question than accountability is perhaps responsibility. That means knowing what went wrong, how it went wrong and why it went wrong.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: That in turn requires a full understanding of what would represent normal or acceptable performance so that the deviations from it can be judged. It requires an understanding of the context and the extent and nature of any shortcomings that may arise. That in turn requires detailed, expert analysis that the Minister and the HSE put in place immediately when concerns were expressed that all...

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Of course, the public — especially the women directly concerned and their families — and Members of this House have a right to be informed as soon as information becomes available on a matter of this gravity, but I have not been impressed by the rush to judgment, to attribute blame and to call for heads.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Despite knowing full well the extent of the careful analysis being undertaken to establish precisely what happened and why and the impossibility of drawing firm conclusions without such evidence, the pressure has been for immediate judgment and the exacting of the highest possible political price to the advantage of the Opposition. This is little more than playing political games with the...

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: It has seen appalling disregard for basic facts and even a misrepresentation of the standard of accuracy that might be expected in various procedures. Population screening and symptomatic disease investigation have been widely confused. Ignorance of the subject has been no barrier to the political opportunists baying for the Minister's head.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The truth is that we do not yet know fully what happened and why. We do not yet know the full consequences in terms of the number of women who were given false negative results when, in all reason, they should not have been, but the relevant experts are compiling their work and we will know the answers to these questions at that point. Then effective accountability can be applied at all of...

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: ——we will have a basis of fact and expert analysis on which to depend. It is then that the appropriate accountability relationships can properly apply and, in applying them, the question of culpability — to whom or what should blame be attached — will be clearer. One person who is not to blame and will not be found to be blameworthy is the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney.

Confidence in Minister for Health and Children: Motion (Resumed) (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I do not need to remind this House of the range of her political achievements over many years of public service.