Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This morning I brought up a Commencement matter. Unfortunately, the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, understandably but disappointingly, was not available. Another Minister took the Commencement matter. The competition for the next director general of the HSE needs to be transparent and accountable. Most of all we need an open competition. To my absolute horror, the HSE cannot find a job description for the director general. It has been like this for years. I asked that we make sure we have a criterion that it is an open competition. I want to know who is on the interview panel. We cannot parachute people, as was done with the most recent one, into posts. I also emphasis the need for clinical experience and not just managerial experience. I refer to hands on clinical experience and that people do not forget what it is like to be a patient or a worker within our health service.

Perhaps we can ask the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, to come into this House. I want to ask him where are the plans the HSE said it would roll out to upskill people in this country. I refer to work, slides and smear tests, etc. being done in-house or shared between ourselves and Britain. Closer to home would make it much more secure and more accountable. When it was outsourced, we did not have the skills either here or in Britain. Those plans to upskill people need to be advanced at a rapid pace. The company or the service needs to be made public. The service needs to be shared between ourselves and the UK.