Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will make a general point related to how long things take. Regarding the summit on the catastrophic infants' cases, the agency in its correspondence states, "The Agency only ever becomes involved when the letter of claim is received." By that time, the solicitor has done all the research and all the work and then submits his or her claim. The agency further states, "This has the inevitable consequence that the Agency has to "play catch-up" as it can only commence its liability and causation investigations when it receives a letter of claim." By definition, then, the system is geared such that there will be a significant time lag. This is another example of it. The agency will be before the committee again as part of our work programme but we will write to it in the meantime if there is a gap in its responses to the issues we raised with it the last day.

We will now go into private session.