Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd. I note this is not his specific area. I wish that the Minister for Health would come into the House.

I asked the Minister to clarify the number of paediatric tracheotomy patients and to clarify the number of nurses who are competent to carry out and train in the tracheotomy procedure. In brief, the answer to the first question was it is not possible to say how many children were discharged with tracheostomies in place. The other answer, in a page and a half, was basically that the Department does not know how many nurses are trained to do this.

Perhaps the Minister of State will indicate whether I have got the wrong end of the stick. I must inform him, however, that the question I posed was not answered in the two pages of script he read into the record. It said a lot but it also said very little. I am not criticising the Minister of State; rather, I am stating that the two-page reply supplied by officials from the Department of Health to a matter raised on the Adjournment by a Member of the Oireachtas contains only one line in reference to that matter, namely, "it is not possible to say how many of those children were discharged with the tracheostomies still in place". The fact that the information I am seeking could not be supplied is a cause for concern. In addition, the Department does not know the exact position with regard to the qualifications of nurses.

Instead of insisting on the Minister of State reading out the reply in the House, the officials to whom I refer should have been honest and stated that they do not have a clue. That would have been the best answer they could provide. I ask the Minister of State to return to those officials and state that it is not acceptable that a public representative be provided with a reply as disgraceful as that which has been read into the record of the House. I do not blame the Minister for Health or the Minister of State in respect of this matter.