Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

While I understand that, it still does not answer the question. Clearly if there was no issue; there would not have been that. The clinicians would have got the results and if they felt safe and ethically bound to tell their patient, they would have just told their patient. However, they did not do that. Clearly something is stopping the clinicians from sharing the information. It is really important that we try to understand what that is. Until we understand what that is and name it and do something about it, one of the adverse outcomes of this saga is that patients will no longer believe as a matter of default that their doctor is being fully open with them. I know I am asking the witnesses to hypothesise and speculate, but what is causing the doctors to put their patients and indeed themselves in this situation?