HSE chief coy on actions

HSE chief Tony O’Brien has refused to be drawn on whether people would be held to account following the publication of the report on child deaths in the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.

Asked if he had very serious questions to answer, he said the bulk of the “adverse events” that were the subject of the report happened before he became director general of the HSE and his job was to change the way the health authority operated.

One of the “quite difficult” choices he had to make at a central level was to divert resources away from services and into the acute hospitals to address some of the issues identified in the report. As far as he was concerned, he was acting correctly.