Dr. Richard O'Flaherty:

I am fully aware of the medical legal implications. I thank members of the committee for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of deprived people, particularly in Limerick. I will first tell members something about myself. I grew up on a small farm in west Galway. My mother was a Fine Gaeler and my father a staunch Fianna Fáiler. I was given no political outlook – I was told to do the right thing. I qualified as a doctor in UCG. My Hippocratic oath says, "Do no harm". These two principles have governed my entire life for 40 years.

As a GP in Limerick, I was involved in a great deal of community work. I was a general practitioner, GP, in the Red Cross and the medical adviser to the Limerick senior hurling team and I worked in communities and with parish committees and various organisations, but it is my work as a GP that brought me into contact with horrific problems. Working deliberately among the deprived people of Limerick, a part of my job was to attend Garda stations. What I saw there was horrific. I will provide a few examples.