Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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332. To ask the Minister for Health the steps that have been taken to address the serious issues identified in safety audits at Cork University Hospital (details supplied); if HIQA or the Health and Safety Authority are actively monitoring works to ensure that the hospital becomes compliant; if any regulatory enforcement action has been taken against the hospital; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35059/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) is responsible for assessing compliance with the National Standards for Safer Better Healthcare in healthcare services. Where a hospital or healthcare provider is found to be non-compliant or partially compliant against any of the National Standards, HIQA works with the hospital to produce a compliance plan to address issues highlighted by the inspection. These plans form part of any future or follow up inspections where progress against the compliance plan is inspected and measured as part of the overall monitoring programme.

The audit referred to was carried out at the request of Cork University Hospital (CUH) management and HIQA was not involved in the process. HIQA’s most recent published report on CUH, from an inspection in July of 2023, was published in December 2023 and the audit identified in the newspaper article is not referenced in the report.

As the matter relating to the steps that have been taken to address the issues identified in the audit are service matters, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.