Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to follow on from a statement made by my colleague, Senator Colm Burke. He correctly stated that thousands of people in the health service do essential and excellent work. We need to acknowledge that, and support them in doing, that work. One always hears the negative stories in the media but there are thousands of positive cases that must be acknowledged.

I am concerned about the reform of acute hospital services implemented in 2012-13 and the establishment of the acute hospital groups. I ask the to Leader invite the Minister for Health to the House to explain why the hospital boards for the hospital groups have not been appointed almost three years later. I understood the boards would have autonomy to govern the hospitals within the groups. I suspect that some of the problems we have heard about and the dysfunction we have seen in acute services is because there are no governance structures. The Department of Health has dragged its feet. These are essential acute services. We have the vision and the strategy but now we need to see the boards put in place, so that they can implement the strategy in the way envisaged. Without that happening, we will see further crises develop and waiting lists increase. We need to see efficiencies and governance structures put in place. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister to the House to deal with these particular issues.