Mr. Ciarán Breen:

The apologies, yes. A number of years ago, along with the HSE, we initiated an open disclosure project. We had two pilot hospitals - originally Mercy Hospital in Cork, and then the Mater Hospital in Dublin. That has been expanded right throughout the hospitals. We advocate that doctors apologise where there is an error and indicate what they are doing about it, in terms of the future, what lessons have been learnt, etc., but it can be complex on occasion. If the Deputy can imagine, say, a situation in which a child is born and there are clearly problems ab initio, but the exact cause is not amenable to an immediate discussion, we have advocated that even in those circumstances doctors should be having very open discussions with the parents of the child and looking to the reasons a combination of things may have happened. This is a project that we have expanded over a period of time, and there is no reason, in cases where there is absolutely clear error, for hospitals not to admit to that error and apologise for it.