Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

Following Senator O'Toole's comments about the inertia in bringing about real public service reform and the inflexibility that exists in redeploying people, I can provide a worrying example in the HSE west region. Portiuncula Hospital kindly offered a surgical day clinic for plastic surgery in the hospital because it had the capacity, beds, nurses and porters to accommodate it. Unfortunately, that service had to be suspended because the consultant carrying out the clinics cannot find the administrative support to continue. Within HSE west, he cannot find a clerk to write 24 letters a month to maintain the service. The 72 patients lined up between now and the end of the year for day case plastic surgery must now join a waiting list of 2,156 patients in University College Hospital Galway. A number of months ago, HSE west spent €90,000 on a report by consultants Mott MacDonald. On page 4 of the report, it is recommended that HSE west should explore opportunities to redeploy corporate staff to support individual organisations. Some 813 corporate staff are employed by HSE west and it is my understanding that it is possible to redeploy one of them to Portiuncula Hospital to have the service maintained. That is a crystal clear example of what Senator O'Toole was talking about. If the HSE and other public service organisations are genuine about public service reform, this simply should not be happening. We have a great record of producing report after report and choosing not to act on them.