I will not hold the Minister up on this. I would say we will get through this very quickly. It is a technical amendment and the Minister is right. It is the only section of the Bill that has not been commenced, but obviously it is an important section. As the Minister said, it gives the chief inspector the discretionary powers to commission an investigation, and that is an important part of the Bill we had passed. Will the Minister say, if this Bill is passed, does it have to go to the Seanad or are these the final Stages of it? When will this section of the Act actually be commissioned? What is the timeframe for it? It is an important part of the Bill that has already been passed and it is something I have raised in the past. I am anxious that it would be commenced as soon as possible.

Sentiment score: 0.05

We are into next year, I take it.

Sentiment score: 0.00

It is very controversial.

Sentiment score: -0.27

On the issue of voluntary hospitals, as the Minister has raised it, I raised this issue with the CEO of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, when he appeared before the health committee last week, as well as with Derek Tierney, the assistant secretary in the Department of Health. I have seen media reports of attempts to make sure the voluntary hospitals play ball in relation to the integrated financial service management system. This is something I raised with staff in the HSE when we were looking at the health regions. Muiris O'Connor and others were in briefings we got when the health regions were at that point - this was before they were established - on what they would do and what they would look like. The issue of voluntary hospitals came up and it came up again in the Oireachtas Committee on Health today. There is value in them, obviously. There is a value in those hospitals having boards. They value that themselves. They are very protective of and precious about it. It is important for all of us, whether we are in government or in opposition, to make it very clear that there is a very high expectation from this House and from, I would imagine, the public who signs the cheques for those voluntary hospitals, that they provide all of the data asked for by the HSE. The HSE is the funder on behalf of the taxpayer. There have been incidents when it has not happened and if we want consistency across all hospitals we need every hospital, including voluntary ones, to play ball. From my perspective, it is important there is not any division between the Government and Opposition and that a very clear, unified message is sent to voluntary hospitals that there cannot be any excuse for not operating these systems in full. I would expect voluntary hospitals to engage with all of those systems in the exact same way as any other HSE publicly-funded hospital.

Sentiment score: 0.35

I have a final point on this issue. I do not want to hold up the discussion on the Bill itself. I have read media reports between tensions between the Minister and some of voluntary hospitals. I do not want to get into that because I do not know the accuracy of it and I am not really that interested in it, in any event. The only interest I have is that the voluntary hospitals are fully compliant, play ball and implement in full the new financial management system that has been put in place, and any other system because I hope we will roll out electronic health records or summary care records at some point so we want the voluntary hospitals to be compliant with that as well. The Minister is talking about amendments that may come to the Seanad as well in that area but has there been any pushback? Is there cause for concern about the voluntary hospitals? Notwithstanding what I said about reading in the media about tensions between the Minister and some of the voluntary hospitals, what has the engagement been like? Are there fears within the Department and the Minister that there is a reluctance from either all or some of the voluntary hospitals to comply with the new system that is being put in place?

Sentiment score: -0.00

I support the amendment, but I will pretty quickly make a point about the digital transformation of healthcare. This is something the Joint Committee on Health has spent a lot of time looking at over the past number of years. I will not rehearse all of the arguments, because we know we have a long road to travel. There is a direction of travel now with summary care records. It will take some time to get all the bells and whistles and electronic health records similar to those that exist in many other European countries. It strikes me that it is red tape that frustrates the system. I was in a hospital recently visiting a patient. We hear about patients on trolleys, but a trolley was rolled past me that was loaded with files. The nurse said that this is where we are in 2025. There were a huge number of patient files and records on that trolley. I do not know how any system could operate like that. I have also dealt with many cases where the families request the records of patients who may have passed away in circumstances where there may be concerns about how they were treated. Again, in the context of medical records, I sometimes wonder how things are not missed and how doctors and nurses can keep on top of everything in a paper-based system. I have to reinforce that point. We need to do more. The Oireachtas committee again stands ready to assist in respect of this matter and to do everything we can to support the Minister and the officials. Obviously, it will require funding. There is an amount of funding ring-fenced for this. The Minister cannot or will not say how much is involved because. obviously, contracts have to go out to tender. I accept that, but it is important for us, as spokespersons on health, to again point out the urgent need to invest in this area. There is or was a reluctance on the part of the Department of public expenditure and reform to invest in health, possibly and probably because of what happened with the personnel, payroll and related systems. Fingers were burnt in the past. We have to move away from that. We have to accept that the world has moved on and that everybody is using IT and digital systems now. The healthcare system has to keep pace with that. While the Bill is important, it is only the starting point. It provides a legislative framework. The funding, the urgency and the delivery have to come from the political system. In the past, the health committee has played a very constructive role in working with officials. We will do so again if required.

Sentiment score: 0.11