Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

We need people to be taken care of if there is a failure. We all accept it is how it happens. The open disclosure experience in other countries tends to show it can be beneficial in that one can save on the legal side and not take shortcuts in the actual care and treatment required by people.

Mr. Breslin's submission stated:

As the committee will be aware, in 2017 a total of €283 million was paid by the health service towards the cost of ongoing cases and settlement of claims. Speeding up the process and moving to a less adversarial approach has the potential, not just to reduce the legal costs for both the plaintiff and the State, but to avoid unnecessary anxiety for those who have already suffered injury.

This suggests we would like to move to open disclosure as it has benefits. Earlier this year on 8 February, we got a submission from the HSE about moving towards open disclosure, which referred to pilot programmes, the Mater Hospital and Cork University Hospital in 2010 and 2013. In the Dáil, the Taoiseach spoke about open disclosure regarding regulation by the Medical Council. The HSE’s document referred to 20,000 of the 140,000 health service staff requiring training in this regard. We do not know what degree of training will be required.

If open disclosure is so beneficial, why is it taking so long?