New bill gives Health Minister too much power

I AM very concerned about the contents of the Medical Practitioners Bill currently being debated in the Dáil. The powers that will be vested in the Health Minister, if this bill is passed as drafted, are frightening.

The Medical Council is set up to protect patients. Under the new bill, the Medical Council loses its independence as the Health Minister will have extensive operational influence over the council. The minister will have the power to issue policy directives and enforce policy directions, as well as to appoint or remove council members or to dismiss the council.

It is dangerous to invest such power in one individual. The Medical Council has so far upheld time-honoured ethical standards (based on the Hippocratic oath), including that abortion is professional misconduct. However, if this bill is passed, will this not mean that a Health Minister who has an ideological commitment to bringing in abortion in Ireland will sometime in the future use a policy directive to force a change in these ethical standards, and be the instrument for bringing abortion into Irish hospitals, as well as embryo research into the educational and the pharmaceutical laboratories in this country?