Mr. Jim Breslin:

I think that if representatives of the State Claims Agency was here, they would probably state a case that would be the reverse. Representatives of the State Claims Agency were present when I was at the meeting of the Committee on Public Accounts on Thursday. They explained the totality of the role as also including advice on risk. Their advice in a healthcare setting is on taking an open approach, identification of incidents early and giving a response early, rather than waiting for legal writs to fly. If one looks at the State Claims Agency's database, it has hundreds of thousands of incidents. It wants everyone to feed in issues that happen within the health service and be proactive in responding to them. I would be very surprised if anyone in the State Claims Agency was to say they were in favour of closing things down. I think they would take an open attitude to issues as they arose.