Minister for Health Mary Harney says there are no plans either at management level or political level to change the structure of Health Service Executive.
The Minister was speaking in the Dáil during a debate on the recent reports regarding cancer misdiagnosis at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.
Minister Harney said she had written to the Board of the HSE and had discussed the reports with the Board Chairman. She said it was a high priority for the Board and they are meeting tomorrow.
Ms Harney also said if there was another serious incident like that in Portlaoise it would be acted upon, and communicated, appropriately. She said people would not have to litigate to find out what happened and said that era was now over.
The debate opened with a statement by Minister Harney followed by robust exchanges between her and Fine Gael Health Spokesperson Dr James Reilly.
Ms Harney said if anything is to be learnt from the Portlaoise hospital controversy it is that having the best cancer service in place is necessary.
She said last week's clinical report was clear that nine women were misdiagnosed but that all those clinical errors were errors of doctors and not management.
She added that no hospital should be dealing with breast cancer unless the capacity was over 150 cases every year. She said 16 hospitals had now ceased breast surgery and a further seven would cease this year.
Centres of excellence
Deputy Kathleen Lynch said in order for a centre to be excellent it had to resourced and that was not happening.
Deputy James Reilly said Portlaoise was a designated centre of excellence but it was not funded appropriately.
Mr Reilly called for a full independent inquiry by HIQA whose terms of reference will allow for an examination of all matters from 2000 to 2008 including the role of Ministers for Health, the Department of Health, the HSE and Health Boards.
Dr Reilly said the Minister had talked of the difficulties of recruiting specialists for the Portlaoise hospital. He said no-one had been willing to take a job there as the word was out that the place was going nowhere.
Labour's Health Spokesperson Jan O'Sullivan called for the outstanding reports, including the one relating to Rebecca O'Malley, to be published as soon as possible to address the issues raised in them.
She said until all of those reports are out in the open, and until the exact inadequacies in the system are discovered, then the problem cannot fully be put right.
Last week three reports were published on the controversy, which saw nine women initially given the all-clear subsequently diagnosed with cancer.
A meeting of the Oireachtas Health Committee last Thursday was told that a local consultant wrote to Mr Martin in 2002 to warn of shortcomings in the cancer screening service in Portlaoise.
Today's Dáil debate ended when a motion welcoming the reports into the breast cancer services in Portlaoise hospital and supporting the actions taken by the Health Minister and the HSE was approved.
The motion was passed by 63 votes to 56.
