Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

Listening to the concert coming from the Government benches regarding the Health Service Executive, it is misplaced to make a virtue out of penalising patients. Last month, senior management in the HSE paid themselves significant bonuses. This month, we are told, the problems in the HSE are due to the failure of senior management to understand their own budgets. How can someone pay himself or herself a bonus for doing such a good job, if he or she fails to understand what it means to manage a budget?

Some Members on the Government benches run their own businesses and would not accept this carry-on from people working for them. Neither would they accept it from those working for the people. While this failure is not on the same scale as that of the Minister for Finance who had a €2 billion surplus last year and is now facing a deficit of €1 billion, the HSE's budgetary failure is affecting patient care.

The issue is accountability, not warm sentiments about what the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, and the HSE chief executive, Professor Drumm, are doing together. This budget overrun equates to the same amount of moneys wasted on the PPARS project, €220 million, which was switched off once the general election was over.

Last week, the Minister told the House of the great job she is doing in the HSE. When I asked what genuine reforms she introduced into the health services, she was silent. There has been little or no reform. Senator Walsh might comment that €3.5 billion was spent on the health services when he first entered the House ten years ago and that it is now €15 billion. It is easy to spend money; it is spending money well that is the problem. That is where there is no accountability to the Houses. Instead of Members on the Government side paying lip-service to the mess into which the HSE is evolving——