Ms Mary Jackson:

Deputy Durkan made a point about the untold effects of the legislation. The Chairman also mentioned it. The last thing we want to do is stifle the clinical trials and the very important clinical work that is going on which is legitimately sponsored by a number of companies in order to advance medicine. As part of the scrutiny process, that needs to be checked. One way would be to get some witnesses with experience in this area of clinical trials because there may be genuine reasons some aspects of those transfers of values or information about the people they are going to need to be confidential. Witnesses who have the competence or expertise to address that would be useful. Part of the scrutiny process is to make sure that what we introduce has no untold effects. We question whether it is equitable that only doctors would be on this register when it could be the representative organisations of the doctors or the hospitals. We must examine the untold consequences of going down any particular route. We need to be sure which is the best way to achieve what we all want. We support proceeding with the Bill. We can share information on what we have done to scope out the various aspects of the Bill and the Minister can talk to Deputy Kelleher to see how it can be moved forward.