Minister for Health Mary Harney has admitted that the health service has some way to go to establish a culture of best practice when it comes to hygiene.
She was speaking after the publication of the first independent National Hygiene Services Quality Review of the State's 51 public hospitals.
Minister for Health Mary Harney
The audit, carried out by the Health Information and Quality Authority, gave most hospitals only a "fair" rating, concluding they had significant room for improvement.
Ms Harney said: "Hygiene and infection control are among the essentials that we must get right."
"That is why this review not only looked at the immediate service delivery elements of hygiene but also examined the critical areas of governance and corporate management," she said.
She conceded that the health service "had some way to go to embed the culture and practice of measuring, monitoring and improvement".
"While hospitals generally performed well on hygiene in the service delivery area, the results were poor on governance. This contributed to the disappointing overall results," she said.
But Opposition parties attacked the Coalition, claiming the review represented "the latest failure" for the Government and the Minister for Health.
"If you can't get something as basic as hygiene right what chance is there of tackling more complex problems in the health service," said Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly.
"This is especially depressing in light of recent reports which suggest the HSE is not meeting its own targets on reducing MRSA," he said.
Labour's spokeswoman on health Jan O'Sullivan said: "The report would indicate that while there may be a general appreciation on the front line as to the necessity of maintaining the highest standards of hygiene, the corporate governance in our hospitals in this regard, does not always match that."
Despite the poor results, the HSE today insisted the review reflected "significant improvements" in hospital hygiene that have been prompted by its two national hygiene audits.
Dr Kevin Kelleher of the HSE's Health Care Associated Infection governance group said: "The HSE has recently put in place a significant amount of strategic, structural and governance initiatives which, unfortunately, may have been too late for this year's report."
He also said: "The review emphasised "a lot of good work has been undertaken and positive assessments were made in relation to hospital hygiene and in particular to service delivery areas such as hand hygiene, equipment, medical and cleaning devices".
