David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

A lot of questions arise from this. It is more about getting clarity. We spoke earlier of the need for buy-in and trust. It is important that we tease out in which circumstances a person would not get access to data. These sections relate to withholding data for people in certain circumstances where it “has reasonable grounds for believing that such access would be likely to cause serious harm to the physical or mental health of the patient concerned.” We will get to that first. However, in relation to practitioners, it refers to “where there are factual indications that disclosure would endanger the vital interests or rights of the health practitioner”. I will wait for the Minister’s response, but we have had a lot of issues recently relating to CHI where patients had to go to the courts and on the steps of the courts were provided with information and data they needed. Clinical reviews are ongoing into the practice of some clinicians in that hospital. That happens at times, unfortunately. We do not want to be withholding information that would protect the interests of the practitioner. What I am trying to understand here is how tightly the sections of this Bill could be applied. What is meant by “vital interests” of the healthcare practitioners? Can we have examples of why access would be denied on what are called “reasonable grounds for believing that such access would be likely to cause serious harm”? What scenarios are we talking about here?