David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Higgins report published yesterday. I was displeased with the way the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, handled himself in terms of briefing the media first before briefing Oireachtas Members. He left us waiting for our briefing and the briefing took place outside of the Oireachtas, not in the Oireachtas, which was disrespectful to all of us.

In contrast, Professor Higgins gave an excellent presentation on the report, on which he should be commended. It is important that Members have a debate on this issue. The Leader is aware the new configurations will have profound applications for acute hospital services across the State for generations to come and not simply for decades. There are some positive aspects of the report, which I welcome, but people also have real and genuine fears on the establishment of these groups or trusts. They pertain to how they will operate, the composition of their boards, their democratic accountability or lack thereof in respect of them and the fact that having six autonomous groups competing against one another for patients and services potentially will have implications for smaller hospitals. The Leader and I are from the south east, where there was real concern that two hospitals in the region located in Wexford and Kilkenny would be taken out of the south-eastern configuration and placed in a new grouping with hospitals in Dublin and regarding the consequences that might have for Waterford Regional Hospital in the long term. All these issues must be teased out properly. People have genuine, real concerns and fears about all this and Members have a responsibility to ventilate them properly, as well as to challenge and question the Minister. I again ask the Leader to arrange for such a debate and that it would take place as soon as possible.