Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Cases of litigation are always being taken against the health service and those matters are now managed by the State Claims Agency. Because we have enterprise liability I will not speculate on the outcome as this will depend on whether the State was liable. In the short term we can implement an approach based on hygiene which is what has been done. The most significant action would be to reduce the incidence of prescribing antibiotics but this cannot be done quickly; it needs to be accomplished over a period of time. The countries with the best record are those with much lower levels of antibiotic prescribing. As I said in reply to the Deputy's earlier question, one in three persons is a carrier of MRSA. The infection is often a contributory factor to death in some cases but more often than not, it is not the main cause of death——

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