Mr. Robert Watt:

I agree absolutely with those sentiments. That focus is to improve services. As the Deputy said, there are many gaps. The situation has been difficult for many people over the last 16 months or so, and particularly challenging for people in dealing with Covid-19 and all the restrictions. I absolutely agree with the Deputy that the key point here is not about litigation or "Prime Time Investigates". It is about the ability of the system to use and get more resources and to galvanise supports to help people. That is absolutely the focus of the Department of Health. Colleagues who are with me today spend much of their time and careers on these issues. Their focus is to improve services. That is definitely my motivation and that of my colleagues in the Department. That is what we are about and it is the absolute priority of the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, the Taoiseach and the Government.

Regarding the other points mentioned by the Deputy, we had correspondence with RTÉ. I believe we have published the letters. If we have not, we can make those available to the Dáil. We can make available the correspondence between us and RTÉ in advance of the programme, if we have not already.

An awful lot of FOI requests are coming in. Obviously, the information is personal in the main. It is not given out generally. Of course, regarding the later requests from the families or their representatives, as I mentioned earlier, the Department is doing all it can to assure the families in respect of the allegations that were made. We are working on that. Significant work is, however, ongoing now in terms of trying to support families and work with them on foot of the concerns they have.