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

A couple of issues have been raised. We had been talking about the large contingent liability before the CervicalCheck cancer scandal broke. That was the work we were going to do. In many ways the two issues have become conflated but it has been a useful example to tease out with the likes of the State Claims Agency, SCA, the Department of Health and the HSE in seeking to understand exactly what the process is when a scandal happens. One of the areas we were going to examine was open disclosure and the possibility of reducing the liability by virtue of the fact that part of that liability is a legal cost liability and that if there were a different process, one could well end up with a smaller liability in some cases and still a reasonable outcome for people who have been damaged. By conflating the two, we have taken the focus away from where it should be. These are two very distinct issues.

There are many other issues, and we will deal with one later which is another example. What is obvious - and we have not reached this point - is that if one is damaged and wants to pursue something, one is almost required to go through the SCA. A mediated process is not available. We will never get to the point of open disclosure if the systems are not in place to allow for an alternative dispute resolution to take place. This is an aspect we must set apart from others and do something definitive about. We have to come back to it with the SCA. We have done some useful work on CervicalCheck. Perhaps that should be pulled together so we can see what we have that is distinct from the health committee.

I refer to process and value for money. We must put them into that category so we are properly within the remit of the committee. We wrote to the SCA last week about the "lack of candour", to use the Chairman's term, regarding giving us correct information. I have eight women telling me they still cannot get their slides. We have not received a reply yet. Why would it take a week to reply?