Mary Henry (Independent)

Senator O'Toole speaks of the amazement of those in the education sector at the return of millions of euro to the Department of Finance. Can one imagine, knowing the trouble in the health service, how people felt when they saw that €70 million was returned to the Department of Finance? While no one wants to see money spent unwisely, surely some of the funds could have been redeployed given the great number of important issues to be addressed in the health service.

I ask the Leader again this week to request the attendance of the Minister for Health and Children to discuss MRSA infections in hospitals. I raised last week the sending of a short paper by clinical microbiologists over a year ago to the Department in which they set out recommendations on the combatting of these dreadful infections. They have not had a proper reply. Apparently, the Minister is to bring in a professional group from the United Kingdom to examine the matter, which means it will take another year before we get anywhere. I was fascinated by the comment of a Member of the Dáil who said of a Minister that he was always one report away from a decision. I would not like to think the same was true in the case of MRSA given that approximately 100 people die from these infections in our hospitals every year. It is a dreadful state of affairs. It would be wrong to allow another year to go by before making any further progress on the issue.