Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not ruling anything in or out. I want to meet Aoife's mum and dad and have this conversation with them. When it comes to the responsibilities, however, all of our responsibilities and the responsibility of the HSE to learn patient safety lessons and implement them, we do not need a statutory inquiry for that piece. I know there are really serious and heartfelt questions Aoife's family have, which are separate from that, regarding what happened and who is responsible. Critically, on the Deputy's question as to whether we are taking everything that can be learnt clinically from a patient safety perspective and applying that, yes, we are doing that. A statutory inquiry will not help with that. They tend to take years, as the Deputy will be aware. We would certainly not be waiting. We are already acting. The chief clinical officer, Colm Henry, has already set up a team and Sandra Broderick is very involved in this, as are the team in UHL and Rachel Kenna, who is head of the national patient safety office and the chief nursing officer at a national level, in terms of sepsis protocols and other patient safety issues. There is a whole team acting to implement everything that can be implemented. A statutory inquiry would not help. It might not hinder things but it would not be necessary for the clinical patient safety response.