Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was going to raise the matter of the banks and tracker mortgages once again but I feel the focus today should instead be on the non-HSE parent representative on the primary care steering group, which has been mentioned previously. I say that because in 2008, I was very involved in a project involving the HSE and the Combat Poverty Agency relating to community participation and primary care. It was a means of addressing the inequality and marginalisation that went on in decision making within the HSE.

It mesmerises me that ten years later, we are still arguing over whether a parent should be on this primary care steering group. It is without question that a parent ought to be there. What is the HSE afraid of? Is it afraid for its power and control, the institutionalised thinking of the senior management and the protectionism that exists in protecting the system that is there and is not serving the Irish people? Is the HSE afraid that somehow, by a parent being on this group, that will be threatened?

I thank the other Senators who have supported this motion today and my own colleagues, Senators Devine and Mac Lochlainn, for bringing this forward. It is crucial that parents' voices are heard. Parents of children with disabilities are one of the most marginalised groups in this country. They fight every day for their children and the rights that they should have. They need to be there and their voices need to be heard. I am sick and tired of the power and control within senior management in the HSE and the institutionalised thinking there. It has to be tackled and this is just a small way of doing that. We should not even have to discuss it here now, ten years after community participation in primary care was lauded.