Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The figure is €13.6 million for bad and doubtful debts. I ask the witnesses to outline the scenario there and while they are gathering the information, I wish to ask one final question on legal costs. There appears to be €80 million in the accounts for the State Claims Agency. This is an issue that we raise regularly. Everyone here is probably aware of the case in the courts last week which resulted in a settlement of €1.4 million for an eight year old girl who suffered severe injuries at birth. The HSE admitted liability but I wish to know what lessons can be learned so that we can avoid such absolutely avoidable problems. The court heard that three publicly appointed consultant obstetricians at the hospital were on holiday and a locum consultant obstetrician was on duty. The HSE accepted responsibility for not having the appropriate people on site. Who is running a hospital where the only three obstetricians can go on holidays at the same time? Surely there should be better management of staff than that.

I have a list of four of five of these types of cases, which I will not go through now because I am sure the witnesses are well aware of them. My main concern is to ensure that lessons are being learned from cases of negligence. I also worry that all such cases are going to the State Claims Agency because that means that the HSE simply writes a cheque for several million euro every few months, depending on when the settlements come through. It should be a bit more painful for the HSE to have to pay out such sums and in that way, it would learn lessons more quickly. I accept that there will always be cases where something goes wrong and for the people affected, no money will ever compensate them for the lifelong injuries they suffered or the life-changing events they went through. However, I am worried that lessons are not being learned.

I ask the witnesses to give us a figure for the number of cases on hand at the end of the year and the estimate of the eventual cost. According to the accounts, the HSE is making settlements to the tune of between €70 million and €90 million each year. I know the State Claims Agency takes the process out of the hands of the HSE, but what kind of risk assessment is done each year by the board and the risk managers employed by the executive? Is there an analysis done of the cases settled to ascertain whether there are common threads running through them, in order to ensure that certain avoidable risks are not recurring?