Dr. Tony Holohan:

It is proposed that this will be an offence in cases of serious patient safety incidents as set out in the Schedule. Clearly, the intention will be to have appropriate education and training in place. That does not just fall to the Department or the HSE. The training bodies themselves will have a significant role. For that reason, among other reasons, I engaged the leadership of the various medical colleges last week. We continue to commit to work with them to try to determine together what needs to happen. Regardless of how one might characterise what has happened in recent months, my personal view - and no criticism is implied here - is that it has first and foremost led to an erosion of societal trust in the profession. In some quarters, there has been a questioning of the extent to which the profession fully subscribes to some of the ethical principles of openness, trust, honesty, disclosure and so on. While it is clear that the Government and the health service have to do a major job of work to rectify much of that, in my view there is also a need for the profession to find a means of engaging directly with society to address these questions. This process should not be mediated through a Minister or through the HSE. It is necessary for the standing of a profession that has been questioned, at least in some quarters.

I think we all hold the view that the vast majority of health professionals fully uphold the standards about which we are speaking. We have, however, been through a process whereby people have been, not unreasonably, questioning these things. It is important that the profession finds a way of addressing some of that. Part of the discussion has also led us to the question of how we, together, can support one another to achieve some of those objectives. If the colleges and other leaders within the profession are bringing forward leadership proposals in terms of their requirements in respect of education and training not just for the legislation, but for any other aspect of the response to what has happened and what is laid out in Dr. Scally's report, how can we best support those proposals? This is not something we can do separately. My own strong sense is that - and this is why we have a CervicalCheck committee organised in the way it is - it is only through patients, patient organisations, professional organisations, the HSE, the Department and others working together to the same common objective that we will achieve what Deputy Donnelly is describing.