FIANNA FÁIL was accused by a Fine Gael TD of preventing Minister for Health Mary Harney from reforming the health services.

Lucinda Creighton said Ms Harney had set out with good intentions as a competent and capable politician.

But the Minister, she said, had been confronted by intransigence regarding work practices, and, more crucially, resistance from Government TDs intent on protecting the status quo at all costs.

“It is not the case that the Minister lacks the drive or intent to effect change and achieve reforms, but rather that she is constrained by the main Government party, which has been in power for too long and does not want or have any enthusiasm for reform or change,’’ she added.

Ms Creighton was speaking during the resumed debate on the Health Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. Its essence, she said, was the dissolution of the board of St Luke’s hospital, Dublin, and the transfer of staff and the hospital’s assets and liabilities to the HSE.

“I take the opportunity to express some degree of concern at that particular development,’’ she added.

“It is well-recorded that politicians and the public have almost lost all confidence in the HSE.”

She said the original concept of the HSE was a good one. “The aspirations of the Minister and the Government in establishing it were well-intentioned, but the objective of eliminating bureaucracy, and the parochial element associated with the old-style, traditional health boards, was not achieved,” Ms Creighton added.

“What replaced the traditional health board was essentially an ever-expanding and pretty frightening monster, the HSE.” There was a complete absence of the streamlining of services, she said.

“We have an inaccessible, confusing and an often frightening system which people shudder at the thought of interacting or interfacing with,” she added.

“We have some very old and well-known problems, with over-staffing, excessive administration and an absence, or at least a very severe shortage, of frontline services.” Those problems were acute and growing by the day, with no clarity about the division of workload within the HSE.

There was a hugely demoralised workforce within the health service, she added.

Ms Creighton said that from her experience of the HSE, the delivery of health services was getting worse.

She said this with a heavy heart, she continued, because a quality service in which people could have confidence was essential.