Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is very disappointing to hear an experienced Senator like Senator Leyden using the health service as a political pawn. If he wants to talk about the history of politics and the way this country was left after his Government was in place, he should mention that his Minister for Health left not only our health services but our economy in a terrible state. Whatever we say about the last Government, it stood up to the mark over the last five years to repair the economy and put funding back into health services.

If we look at the facts, Ireland has the second highest expenditure on health services among OECD countries. It is not just about funding. It is about accountability. I would ask the Leader to bring the Minister to the House, because we need political accountability.

We also need administrative accountability for the manner in which these funds are being spent in our health services. I point the finger of blame at the HSE which is not managing the funding provided by the taxpayer to the best of its ability to provide essential health services to our communities.

My colleague, Senator Reilly, the former Minister for Health, was mentioned. He reconfigured the acute hospital networks in 2013, but the problem has been that the governing boards of those hospitals have not been appointed. We are now four years down the road. Without accountability the HSE is not going to be held to account for the harrowing scenes we saw on "Prime Time" last night, which we are all concerned about and are expressing our outrage on.

I ask the Leader to bring the Minister for Health to the House to explain why the hospital boards have still not been appointed to govern the hospital networks that were reconfigured in 2013. Without that accountability, without that governance, we are not going to see the improvements and efficiencies planned at that time. We all need to work together, across parties if necessary, to ensure that we get to the fundamental problems in our health services, because arguing on parochial issues as our colleague, Senator Leyden, has just done will not solve the problem. We need to stand up and be counted on a more national level.