Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Breen mentioned earlier that across maternity, there are 26 or 27 cases of cerebral palsy on average. Obviously, there are incidents that result in outcomes other than cerebral palsy. That is not the universe of experience in any sense. Is that not very serious? Those are 26 children and 26 families who are impacted with their lives entirely altered. I am not suggesting this is a role of the State Claims Agency, but at what point does the State determine that 26 is just far too many? In most cases these are caused by a failure to intervene in a timely way. I am not suggesting that any number is an acceptable number of cases. I am concerned that we have insufficient accountability from hospitals with the current scheme. We have an inability to oversee it in a way that says we understand that there are situations where incidents will occur and there was nothing we could do about them but there are far too many incidents where we have had to admit liability and apologise where a timely intervention might have avoided it and its lifelong consequences. Is it time now to review the clinical indemnity scheme?

I might come back to this in private session. I think it is time the committee asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to review the clinical indemnity scheme. I know he did a report on it in 2012. It needs to look at the role of hospital accountability, risk incidents, reviews involving parents and the presentations to the State Claims Agency or others regarding risk incidents. We need to mandate the opportunity for external reviews into hospitals to be done as a condition of continued participation in the clinical indemnity scheme. We need to look at what protection we offer consultants, nurses and other people working in the hospitals who identify problems to parents and who are essentially quiet whistleblowers within the hospital system, rather than presenting any risk to them.

At the moment we have incident after incident. Dr. Peter Boylan did a report on it and we are hearing it from the State Claims Agency today. It impacts those families and those children for the rest of their lives. It is too serious and the State is paying for it. We see the level of exposure and the level of personal hurt. I would like to discuss it in private session and I hope I will get the support of my colleagues in seeking a timely review by the Comptroller and Auditor General.