*Bernard Gloster.
HSE CEO, Bernard Gloster has turned down a request by councillors in Clare to attend a behind closed doors meeting.
At the November meeting of Clare County Council, Cllr Cillian Murphy (FF), Cllr Ian Lynch (IND), Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF), Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF) and Cllr Joe Garrihy (FG) proposed that Gloster attend an in-camera meeting with local representatives, such a gathering would have excluded members of the media from attending and reporting on the engagement.
In correspondence issued to the Council, the HSE CEO outlined, “As you will appreciate I am the CEO for all of the country and it would not be possible for me to engage directly with each local area or authority and many have very significant challenges, all legitimate”.
He explained, “I am currently working with the leadership of the UL Hospitals, Mid‐West Community Healthcare, National Ambulance Service and Public Health to make improvements in the Mid‐West including Clare. I am also changing the structure of the HSE into six dedicated Regions and the Mid‐West is one. This will result in one single leader having the authority and responsibility to manage and integrate all services in thew Mid‐West and report directly to me”.
Gloster is currently interviewing candidates for the role of Regional Executive Officer and he said the appointed person will be able to meet with Councils in their area when they take up their appointment “hopefully before the end of quarter 1 in 2024”.
As a compromise for the interim, he committed to asking the CEO UL Hospitals, the Chief Officer of HSE Mid‐West Community Healthcare, the Mid‐West Director of Public Health and the Mid‐West Manager of the National Ambulance to meet with the Council ‘in camera’ before the end of 2023.
Gloster concluded, “I am not ruling out a possible meeting with myself in the future but trust that the members appreciate that I must respond to all counties in an equitable manner. The engagement between the team and the councillors will be chaired on the HSE side by Colette Cowan, CEO UL Hospitals and her office will arrange to contact you”.
Speaking at a meeting of the Social Development Strategic Policy Committee (SPC), Cllr Gerry Flynn (IND) voiced his opposition to the increasingly common requests from his colleagues for meetings behind closed doors.
Addressing the SPC’s final meeting of 2023, Cllr Flynn paid tribute to the media for their coverage of all matters in the local authority. “I am not a supporter of in-camera meetings,” he stated when stressing the importance of the ‘fourth estate’ in relaying matters relating to the public from the Council. “The HSE have ye the answer on that one,” he quipped of Gloster’s decision to decline the -in-camera meeting.
