Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. My apologies for my absence. We had votes in the Seanad. My apologies for not being present for all the presentations. To come back to the comments of my colleague, Deputy O'Connell, on the regulation of home care, I have published a Bill on that and it has been debated in the Seanad. A very comprehensive report on it was produced by the Law Reform Commission. The one problem I had when the debate took place in the Seanad was that there appears to be resistance from the Department of Health to progressing the matter. That is a concern I have. It is essential that we have that regulation.

There are now 32 different companies in the country providing home care and, while they are all very good, it is still something we need to do.

I will refer to the data protection issue and how far we have come. A number of years ago I spoke to someone who worked in a maternity unit where it was accepted practice that a person living in a particular area could telephone the maternity unit to find out the up-to-date news on Margaret who was in labour and whether the baby was delivered. It was accepted practice within the particular unit to give out information freely about the progress of someone's labour, but that has now changed and at least we have moved away from that situation.

Mr. Quinn stated that the framework for the management of health data does not address the sharing and collection of data within the private sector. Many of the organisations that are providing care for people with intellectual or physical disability are technically in the private sector. Is he saying that the legislation does not cover them or am I getting that wrong? What do we need to do if we want to cover the private sector's collection of data? Do we need to amend the proposal that is before us or is it a case of further legislation being required?

I will leave it at that because I think most of the other issues I want to raise have been raised.