Mr. Phelim Quinn:

There has been a significant range and diversity of questions, but I will do my best to address all of them.

Deputy Kelleher asked about HIQA's involvement, since 2008, after the breast cancer misdiagnosis issue at Portlaoise hospital. I will give a brief oversight of some of its involvement and will then pass on to my colleague Ms Dunnion. Following the 2008 activity, HIQA would have been in receipt of individual pieces of what we would call "unsolicited information" in respect of some risk issues within Portlaoise hospital. Also, through the conduct of a governance review under our monitoring against the national standards for the prevention and control of health care associated infections, we had escalated a range of issues into the HSE nationally in regard to risk management arrangements within Portlaoise hospital.

It was as a result of the accumulation of that range of risk issues, that in 2014, as was in our business plan, we agreed to conduct a governance review within Portlaoise hospital. That was simply because we had significant concerns accumulating about the hospital and felt there was a requirement for proactive engagement with it on that basis, under section 8 of the Act. However, the tragic events occurred in regard to the identification of a series of infant deaths on the "Prime Time" programme and then the ensuing investigation took over from our plans to conduct a governance review.