Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to support that. It was clarified that there was a policy of open disclosure, which was supposed to change all of this. The point is validly made; when did the policy come in and what have been the changes since then? In my own experience, with serious issues of medical negligence people are most reluctant to go down the court route. They are actually forced down it. It is not that they want to go to the ends of the earth. It is quite the opposite, they want to stay with their child and love their child. They are forced into an adversarial system. It is appalling and it soaks their energy. The committee should have a report back on the policy of open disclosure. It is about value for money so it comes directly under our remit, not to mention being about treating people with dignity. I remind the committee of the famous Deloitte report, a simple report required on value for money, which took more than one year to complete. We are now looking at some 400 items. In fairness we asked for it and this is what they gave us. If this is an indication of how a system functions then open disclosure will not make much of a difference unless there is a serious commitment given to recognising that we must change the system. Theoretically we have it changed, so let us see the result of it.