John Whelan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

On this day a few years ago, I was born in Portlaoise General Hospital. My own children and my granddaughter were also born there. It is a fine hospital with dedicated staff. Now its reputation and the public's confidence in the hospital are being dragged into an unsavoury row between the HSE and HIQA. I commend the Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, on the forthright, common-sense approach he has taken in saying that neither of these agencies, under the auspices of the State, should be taking lumps out of each other in public and threatening legal action to prevent the publication of the independent HIQA report into past shortcomings at Portlaoise General Hospital. The report apparently confirms our worst suspicions: that Portlaoise Hospital, under successive Governments and Ministers for health, was underfunded, understaffed, under-resourced, and subsequently undermined, to the point at which the staff could not safely carry out their duties, work and responsibilities. Now that HIQA has investigated this, the agony and trauma for the families who lost their children are being unnecessarily prolonged, due in particular to the HSE's attempt to prevent the publication of this independent report.

I am calling on the Minister, and I ask all colleagues here to call on the Minister, to knock heads together so that HIQA can get on with its job and put into the public domain its full, unvarnished report. Then we can see for ourselves what went wrong, why it went wrong and what the shortcomings were, and establish for certain that they have been addressed. I commend the Minister for putting additional staff, a new management team and new consultants into Portlaoise so that the public can have confidence. Hundreds of families go there each year to have their babies. It is not acceptable for the HSE to attempt to dilute or to change the contents of an independent HIQA report. It should be ashamed of itself for causing additional trauma to families that have suffered enough. I ask the Minister to immediately bring this unsavoury row to a close and have the HIQA report published in full.