Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We can do so.

On prisoner welfare, issues might arise involving the State Claims Agency in respect of medical negligence cases. We have established that there are only four doctors in the service and that 63% of prisoners are on medication. I have received private correspondence from people who claim that they are not receiving adequate medical treatment. I do not want this issue to end up at the door of the State Claims Agency. We want all of these bodies to have procedures in place to log all of these issues in order that the agency will be aware, in advance, of potential medical negligence cases that could cost the State a lot of money. We are looking at that broad issue. We can give the information to other committees too, but we are here to deal with the issue of medical negligence in the context of costs to the State through the State Claims Agency. We are not going to get into how the prisons are run. The committee does not need to know that information.