Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome. What is wrong today is that he is sitting in the chair opposite. The system in this country is totally and utterly wrong. The Minister is answerable to the House here but the people who caused this problem have swanned off or are hidden in the system. Admittedly, one was referred to as having withdrawn from surgery. I believe he is now suspended. At the end of the day, we have a system in this country that sees us, as soon as something goes wrong, wheel in the Minister, fire him and kick him out the door, whereas the people who cause the problems continue in their roles all the time. Therefore, we have a system that continues to be rotten. What is wrong is that we are able to hold only the Minister answerable. There is no oversight of anything in this country. In this regard, we could go back to the crash of the R116. There was no oversight, nothing, and nobody was taking any notice. The same applies to CHI. Surely somebody somewhere knew what was going on. Why is there not an avenue for staff to go directly to the Minister and state such a thing is happening in their hospital and that they are really uncomfortable with it? Only last week, people were screaming for the Minister to come back from Washington and answer questions here. I do not believe that by coming here today he can answer the questions. Although we have managed to scratch an itch by having him in here, ultimately the people responsible are still up the road doing their jobs, apart from one sacrificial lamb who has been isolated so far. Why was the Minister not able to walk in and fire the bloody lot of them? Why could he not do that? He is answerable but has no power over those concerned.

We have left 17 families in absolute pain, trying to figure out their future. We have politicians who want to dance on each other's graves but at the end of the day it does not answer or solve any question. We have to change the system in this country so we can hold wrongdoers to account. I do not care how senior they are. I have spent my life defending people in trade unions and their jobs but I would never have defended a wrongdoer, and neither would any trade union anywhere have done so.

Ultimately, we have a Minister in here trying to explain away something when I do not believe he is anywhere close to even getting to the start of where it all went wrong. There were people involved in purchasing, nursing and clinical tests, including blood tests – you name it. How did we finish up with a situation in which nobody opens their mouth? Perhaps my colleague Senator Clonan has hit the nail on the head in that we have what is almost a gentleman's agreement to deviate from what is required to get the job done. In this regard, Senator Clonan mentioned the heart stents for babies. If there is a need to do these things, why is there not a procedure in place? I do not ask the Minister to be responsible; I ask the Secretary General of his Department to be responsible, but we cannot question the Secretary General here in the House. We cannot ask him why he has no procedures in place.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly is Minister for Health. When I look around the Cabinet, I see Ministers with seven, eight and nine areas of responsibility. If we were running a company, we would fire the chief executive and restart from the beginning, having everybody responsible for one thing and able to oversee it. There is no oversight, and as long as there is none people like the Minister will continue to come into this House to try to answer questions that they themselves have not been able to get answers to and try to appease the political system. The political system is not where this needs to be; it needs to be in the criminal system and it requires a full investigation. When the Minister starts the investigation, covering staff from the purchasing officer to the surgeon who carried out the operation, the whole goddamn lot should be fired.They have put children's lives at risk. They have damaged families who are trying to answer questions. There are families who are asking themselves whether their child treated properly when he or she had surgery in the past and whether he or she got one of these devices that is not clinically approved put into his or her body.

I am sorry the Minister is here. He should be off doing his job somewhere. The people who are responsible should be here but, alas and alack, our system does not allow for that. The Minister is present and he has got to answer the questions. Returning to what Senator Doherty said, all the Minister can do is make sure the inquiry is speedy and that people are identified and held to account. Holding them to account means saying "Thank you for your service and goodbye."

I do not know how we will appease the families that have been subjected to this. It is really sad, but I will not play the political game and start blaming one Government over another. The system has been rotten for years. We are being danced on by a powerful Civil Service and our Ministers are turning out to be puppets put in to answer questions. It is just not the way it should be.