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

I have one last point. I generally have a last point. I know it is endemic in this place, but however. Given that legal costs are extraordinarily high in this country, there is a case for offers to be made without prejudice to patients who feel they did not receive adequate treatment. Full disclosure might be a help. That would be preferable to dragging cases through the courts and then having to determine cases when other costs are added on.

Quite a number of the cases that come to court in the maternity area seem to refer to deprivation of oxygen and consequent brain damage during birth. I have read about such issues and how they recur, but there are preventative measures as well. There are ways and means of ensuring that does not happen or at least does not happen on the scale it has happened in the past or in the same hospitals on the scale that it has happened in the past.