Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)
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I am incredulous at Mr. O'Brien talking about it as an isolated case given the then Department of Health and Children expressed concerns about it in 2005, the example of some concern in 1996 and the statistics we have now. It was an epidemic breaking out. This was not an isolated case. It was an epidemic. If the HSE did not know, it should have known.

It is all very well for Dr. McLoughlin to state that it is not in the Department's files. Civil servants and everybody else are careful about what they keep in their files and it is what they know outside of their files which is important. It is difficult to believe that the HSE and the Department of Health did not know that this type of activity was very common at that time. Certainly, the evidence is there for 2009, and Mr. O'Brien put it forward to 2011. It seems from what we have got since that the HSE ought to have known this was happening. These were hospitals in the HSE's care. In 2009, when it found out about the CRC, did the HSE investigate anybody else immediately? Did it send out a questionnaire? Did the HSE do anything about it?