Dr. Tony Holohan:

On the issue of patient safety, in a broad sense we categorise cases in different levels. When we find out about something the first objective we set for ourselves is to determine whether anything about the incident represents a risk for people who have yet to use the service. I am not talking about screening, I am just talking in a general sense. We ask who would be at risk if the service was to continue on the same basis without something happening. Such cases are the first group. The next group relates to instances where there is reason to believe something about the use a group of people made of a service placed them at risk or harmed them and where there is a need to look back to identify such people and to put in place some service to address whatever has been identified. The next would be individual incidents which are very significant but which might not have either of the first two ramifications I have identified.