John Crown (Independent)
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I thank Professor Hourihane. That is pretty helpful. We have had years of no maternal deaths in Ireland, which was wonderful. It is not the way it is now but it was that way for a while. We put a huge effort into ensuring there were no maternal deaths. Rarity should not be an argument for not doing something. This is an event for which there should be zero tolerance. We should have no deaths whatsoever.

I compliment Dr. Byrne and Professor Hourihane on their presentations. I rarely say this but Professor Hourihane made me proud to be a doctor. He made a really good presentation. It was unsentimental, pointed, focused, committed and passionate and I am delighted he had the courage to highlight the deficiencies because it is a microcosm of a lot of problems which happen in our public health service. We have huge deficiencies. No member of this committee should have been surprised to hear him say we are off the bottom of the league table for numbers of allergists per head of population because I have repeatedly told members we are off the bottom of the league table in every specialty one cares to mention. Whether general practice specialties or hospital-based specialties, we are hanging off the bottom of the league table. We should also not be too surprised at his totally appropriate, unveiled and unadorned critique of the sloth with which the bureaucracy reacts to problems like this. Those of us who have tried to effect different degrees of reform will be aware of it.

This is really simple. We could have legislation drawn up very quickly which would address the key elements of what is required which is to put mandates in place whereby places which either profit from, or take responsibility for, the presence of people who are eating would make appropriate provision for their safety in terms of dealing with food allergies should they arise and that there would be an elimination of legal liabilities for people who, in good faith, would make the kind of emergency decision which would have saved Ms Sloan's daughter but who are prevented from doing so because of fear.

We need to address, in this context and in so many other contexts, the callous attitude our system has put in place in terms of under-providing, whether dermatologists in the south east, which has the highest incidence of melanoma in the country but where there are no dermatologists, whether children waiting for two years for hearing tests-----