Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

Yesterday, I spoke about the reviews being done into the incidents in Portlaoise and asked for time in the House to discuss them. Having seen and read the reports and seen the commentary on them today, I am certain this House needs to spend time as soon as possible discussing them and analysing their implications for the Minister for Health and Children and the HSE and for how our health services are run.

These are extraordinary reports. John Fitzgerald's report, which is an investigation into the crisis in Portlaoise, shows how the HSE acted. If this is how it behaves in a crisis how does the system work the rest of the time? The report states clear communication problems exist within the HSE. Too many people are doing too many jobs and do not know what are other peoples' jobs. There is confusion and uncertainty about roles with a lack of authority and responsibility.

The Minister and the Department of Health and Children are ghost-like figures. Their roles are completely unclear as is whether they have any impact. The report does not find anyone responsible for anything which happened and speaks about a systems failure. There is no such thing as a systems failure. Somebody somewhere is responsible.

I reiterate the point I made yesterday that we must discuss this as a priority. For this House to be seen as relevant, these reports should be discussed here next week and I hope the Leader can arrange this. In any other country, these reports would be a resigning matter for somebody somewhere. They are not in this country and business goes on as usual. The very least we can do is discuss it here.

I also wish to raise a point made today on transport. The Government was re-elected because it told the people it could successfully manage the economy and various projects. The lie of this is shown today in reports on Transport 21 and the delivery of projects. Again and again, we see projects delayed.