Independent TD Michael Healy-Rae submitted 115 parliamentary questions to the Minister for Health one day last week, mostly inquiring about hospital appointments for individuals .
The Kerry deputy said he was “absolutely inundated” with requests to make representations to health authorities. TDs often ask parliamentary questions of Ministers as a means of putting pressure on State bodies to make progress in the cases of their constituents. They have been estimated as costing an average of €200 each.
However, few use the system as enthusiastically as Mr Healy-Rae. His 115 questions, submitted in the last week and answered on the last day of the Dáil term, were almost all inquiring about hospital appointments for individuals. A small number inquired after medical devices, operations and dental appointments.
Most questions received an identical reply, which pointed out that it was illegal for the Minister to direct the HSE “to provide a treatment or a personal service to any individual or to confer eligibility on any individual”.
HSE referral
In all cases the questions were referred to the HSE. However, Mr Healy-Rae was advised to contact Minister for Health Simon Harris’s private office if he did not receive a reply within 15 working days and his “officials will follow the matter up”.
"This is me doing my job," Mr Healy-Rae told The Irish Times. He said that probably no politician in Ireland received as many requests to help on medical matters as he did, and that he received pleas for help from all over Ireland. "I don't say no," he said.
“I have people in Kerry going blind waiting for a cataract operation,” Mr Healy-Rae said. “There is a four- or five-week gap and if they don’t get an operation, they’ll go blind.”
Asked why he submitted so many questions on the last day of the Dáil, he said there was “an awful surge last week”. He and three of his staff were in his office until 3am last Tuesday processing the requests for help, he said.
Does it do any good?
“It does, it does,” he said. However, Mr Healy-Rae denied his representations facilitated people in moving up waiting lists. “It highlights their cases.”
