Last week I raised with the Tánaiste serious concerns about breaches of the public-only consultant contract in the Rotunda, Cork University Maternity Hospital and University Hospital Galway. I acknowledge the excellent work done by my colleague, Deputy Rice, exposing these systemic breaches - breaches that pose a risk for public patients. A quarter of all work carried out a Galway University Hospital lab comes from the private hospital, Bon Secours. This extra work is overwhelming the system to the point that samples are being outsourced to private labs. This is done at enormous expense to the taxpayer. Due a service level agreement between Bon Secours and University Hospital Galway, private work is being washed through the public system. The taxpayer picks up the bill. I raised the significant and dangerous delays this is causing for public patients in the Dáil last week. A statement released by hospital management has since confirmed that there is a backlog of 3,449 samples waiting to be tested. These delays are not abstract. They involve people waiting for cancer diagnosis, people whose lives depend upon timely results, people who cannot afford to be pushed down a queue because 25% of the laboratory's workload is taken up by work from a private hospital. These consistent delays resulted in the laboratory losing accreditation from the Irish National Accreditation Board. The lab does not meet nationally set guidelines for turnaround times despite the Trojan work of its dedicated staff. Galway University Hospital lab is one of the biggest in the country and in a major cancer centre and yet it has no official accreditation. The Department of Health and HSE officials we in the Joint Committee on Health yesterday. The CEO of the HSE told my colleague, Deputy Rice, that they were completely unaware of the service level agreement between the hospitals. It is a remarkable statement from the very top of the health service. It raises serious questions about the scale of the issue and how many of these service level agreements are violating the public-only contract. These contracts were signed in 2023 and were meant to be fully enforced by January of this year. Their entire purpose was to put an end to this kind of behaviour. Instead, we are discovering breach after breach and there is no evidence of any proactive monitoring from the Government to enforce this contract. My questions are: why has University Hospital Galway not immediately stopped this breach of the public-only contract? Is this happening in any other labs across the country? What has the Government done to check? What system has been put in place to ensure full implementation of the public-only contract?

Sentiment score: 0.01

The question I am asking here is: what exactly is the system to monitor and ensure full implementation of the public-only contract? Clearly, there is a number of breaches around the country. They are arising one by one. What system has the Government in place to ensure this contract is being enforced? In relation to Galway, the Tánaiste seems to be okay with the situation that this breach will continue for a number of months. The contract was signed. It was put in place in 2023 and meant to be fully enforced and fully implemented by January of this year. That has not happened. The breaches are continuing. Is the Tánaiste okay with them continuing until later this year? Should the public-only contract not be enforced now? Is the situation where the management of the hospital is telling consultants on the public-only contract to continue to do private work where they have a backlog and where people's tests are being delayed? People are not getting the results in a timely fashion. The lab has no longer got national accreditation because it is not meeting the targets. That is not acceptable. Does the Tánaiste agree that is not acceptable and the public-only contract needs to be adhered to now, not later in the year?

Sentiment score: 0.07