Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not wish to go into individual tragic circumstances but a number come to mind. Inevitably, moneys are spent on the defence of court cases. In my comments, I was trying to balance the hospital needs, the service needs and the maternity needs initially against the cost of having to defend the tragic outcomes in court. If €1 million is to be spent in the courts or in the hospital, which is the better option for the patient and which is the better option for the service? We need to be clear about that. This is hugely important. In one or two of the cases that come to mind, there might have been an initial failure as well. I do not know; I was not there. However, those issues need to be identified. There are costs associated with both. If there is a deficiency in the delivery of the services in the hospital that is not associated with funding, we need to know about that as well.

Either way, the State ends up paying and the service ends up getting the bad publicity.