Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response. While I understand his explanation and justification for spending six figure sums on PR companies, I do not think that spending this amount of money simply to deal with press queries is essential to public welfare. It could be inferred from his statement that none of this money was used for training people on how to conduct interviews and so on. For that reason it would be very interesting to see the invoices for the precise services that have been provided by PR companies such as Setanta to organisations such as Saolta University Healthcare Group. I think it should not cost so much money simply to keep patients informed of what is going on in hospitals. Misinformation or reputational damage will not necessarily arise from reduced spending as in my view it does not require six figure sums to be spent on PR to get the message across. It is simply a matter of being organised and explaining what Saolta University Healthcare Group does in a truthful and timely fashion.