Mr. Robert Watt:

The biggest element of the State Claims Agency relates to medical negligence and a smaller subset accounts for the most significant costs. When there is a case, the State Claims Agency manages the day-to-day case, decides the strategy and recommends a course of action. When it comes to feedback on what we can do to reduce the incidence of cases of negligence and harm, it is about patient safety, incident management and different ways we respond. A patient safety office has been established and we have new protocols in respect of incidents and a new approach for how we engage with people who have suffered from an incident. The Department's role is to get feedback from the State Claims Agency in terms of its understanding of what is going on, and then to look at the policy response and whether we can do things differently to reduce the number of claims and to manage the claims process in a more efficient way. The number of claims is unsustainable for the State. The amount of money we are paying out is incredible and it must have gone up by more than 100% over the past ten years. It is incredible, so-----