HSE Dáil replies 'fall short' says department

The Department of Health has said that the performance of the Health Service Executive (HSE) in answering parliamentary questions from politicians in a timely manner "falls far short of what is needed".

The department said that, in nearly half of all cases, the HSE had failed to produce a reply to a parliamentary question within the prescribed target of 20 working days.

It said that the HSE recognised the unsatisfactory nature of its performance in this area. The question of how parliamentary questions on the health service, tabled by politicians in the Dáil, are answered has proved hugely controversial in the Oireachtas in recent years.

Following the establishment of the HSE, the Department of Health introduced a practice whereby questions tabled to the Minister for Health on what are considered to be day-to-day operational matters in the health service are routinely referred to the HSE's chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm.

Nearly 60 per cent of the 5,991 parliamentary questions tabled by politicians to Minister for Health Mary Harney last year were referred to the HSE for answers. Politicians have complained of lengthy delays in securing answers to questions referred by the department to the HSE.

Answers to questions referred to the HSE are also not included on the Dáil record in the same way as questions answered directly by ministers.

After a lengthy delay, the health executive, earlier this year, began to publish answers to parliamentary questions on its website.

The delays in answering parliamentary questions and the failure to record answers on the Dáil record have fuelled concerns about the public accountability of the HSE, particularly given the abolition of the former health boards, which met in public session on a monthly basis and on which public representatives served.

In an internal document seen by The Irish Times, the department stated that the HSE had demonstrated "considerable top-level commitment and initiative in relation to handling of parliamentary questions and in opening alternative channels of information for members of the Oireachtas".

But the Department of Health also said: "Despite this, its performance to date in terms of the timeliness of parliamentary question replies falls far short of what is needed.

"As a starting point, taking account of the HSE as a newly formed national organisation, a target of 20 working days to turn around parliamentary questions referred for direct reply was adopted.

"The experience so far is that, nationally, about 55 per cent of replies issue within the 20 working day target."

The department said that the HSE had recently completed an initial round of staff training across all areas to raise awareness of the need to improve performance and it was finalising arrangements to create four area parliamentary affairs units to support its central unit on a national level.

The department also said that the health authority was considering further staff training on parliamentary affairs.

"The department's immediate objective involves getting the HSE to substantively comply with the 20 working day target in the short term and thereafter to reduce it significantly," the health department stated.