Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The legislation will be before the House shortly and Deputies will be able to put their points of view. The Health Service Executive authority has made it very clear to us that it has put together and is endeavouring to implement inspections and hygiene standards to defeat infections and cross infections, to implement protocols for gowning, washing and transfers of food covering a range of areas in hospitals and hospital-related areas to address the substantial problems that have existed over the past few years. The hygiene audit, which has been published in an open and transparent manner, shows where the improvements have been made and where there are still difficulties. Dedicated staff have been assigned to a unit the aim of which is to overcome not just MRSA but a range of infections that have always existed in hospitals and health facilities throughout the world.

On the question of transparency in dealing with patients and families who have lost people, the Government believes all these issues should be dealt with in a transparent manner. There is no reason anybody should not be given full details of post-mortems or other procedures. This has been the practice in the health service, it is Medical Council policy and it should be done.

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