Mr. Peter Murphy:

Deputy Donnelly asked about the calls for an investigation. I would highlight that when we met the Minister, he committed to reply to us on that specific issue by the end of May. We look forward to his response on that. He wanted to address the issue with his team and his officials internally, and he has promised to come back to us very soon.

In essence, we have three questions on that investigation. First, what happened in the past across the entire system? Second, why did it happen? Third, what can we learn from it? That is an investigation worth having, not just for the parents involved and the people who are affected today but learning for the future in terms of other medications, groups or parents who might well be here in ten years.

On the service needs, we have to remember that the first step in putting any plans in place for service provision will start with a diagnosis. The very first question that needs to be addressed in the entire area is how we will address diagnosis of potentially hundreds of cases in a service where, in the national centre for genetics, we have four consultant geneticists, ten counsellors and a waiting list of more than 1,300 people, including about 400 who have been on the list for more than 18 months.

It is clear that the national genetic strategy must be funded, resourced and started. There has been much debate on that issue and I presume it has been discussed by the committee.

Another service issue mandated by the new European guidelines, and the pregnancy prevention plan in particular, is that all women taking this drug must have an annual review by a specialist rather than a general practitioner, GP. The question of how we will fit 500 or 1,000 women newly diagnosed with epilepsy into the specialist neurology service in Ireland in the current situation whereby it is already under-resourced remains outstanding and has not been addressed in detail today. There are 34 neurologists nationwide but there should be double that number according to minimum guidelines from the British Association of Neurology. There is a resourcing issue in that regard. The reviews must be carried out but we must ask how that will be done in practice when we have so few resources, including consultant neurologists, epilepsy specialist nurses, etc., to handle this scenario.