Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I thank Senator Dardis for that remark.

I draw attention to page 89 of the report which deals with findings. I refer again to the inability to communicate effectively with the Minister for Health and Children at the time. The report states:

The Department of Health and Children prepared in 2002 a draft Government Memorandum and associated Heads of Bills which would, effectively, have rectified the situation if presented to the Minister and Government and the requisite legislation was enacted. No submission was made to the Minister on the matter by the Department.

Clearly, some decision was made to draw up heads of a Bill. From my limited experience of having worked with a Minister, I thought that when heads of a Bill were drawn up it was usually with the agreement of the Minister. I do not have direct experience of the Department of Health and Children but it appears that practices in the Department were extraordinary if this report is anything to go by.

We are not discussing the Health Service Executive in this legislation but the framework of legislation now required on foot of the Supreme Court judgment and everything that has been revealed. What will now happen, given that,effectively, the entire administration of the Department of Health and Children has been transferred to the Health Service Executive? The reference in the report to the speed at which decisions were being made is notable. Pages 51 and 52 refer to the wanderings of the famous folder around the Department and the various desks on which it ended up. The Secretary General, in his statement, states: "My view then and now is that this was a period of corporate and personal overload where the Department attempted to get through too much in too little time". That is some admission. He further states:

This followed from the very ambitious timetable set down for the Health Reform Programme in particular. Combined with normal business requirements and the EU Presidency, the time and work pressures on the Department were very intense over the course of the year.

If the Department attempted to get through too much in too little time there was a system failure. Effectively, a system overload resulted in system failure, one of the consequences of which is the disappearance of a file.

The statement by the then Minister in the report refers to the period when the famous management meeting took place in the Gresham Hotel. In his statement he provides a backdrop — page 53, third paragraph — and refers to the——