Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

I commend the work done by Deputy Reilly on this and a number of previous Bills. The legislation before us highlights the importance of having an expert in this field in the House who is prepared to bring forward good proposals of this nature. I recognise the fact that the Minister for Health and Children is prepared to accept the general principle behind the Bill, which shows that Members on all sides can, in co-operation with each other, bring forward legislation to close certain loopholes or gaps that exist.

As Deputy Reilly stated, the main purpose of the Bill is to protect patients. I am interested in making a contribution to the debate because I am familiar with a case where a patient was placed in an extremely vulnerable position and had no comeback in respect of a mistake made by a practitioner in a private clinic. Cases such as that illustrate why the Bill is important.

The Bill is designed to regulate doctors and ensure that they possess appropriate insurance to practise medicine in Ireland. The majority of doctors posses such insurance but, unfortunately, there are some who, either inadvertently or through sheer carelessness, do not. It is rather unusual that neither the Department of Health and Children nor the Irish Medical Council knows the exact number of doctors in this country who are not insured. Even if it is not mandatory in nature, there should be an obligation on doctors to inform the HSE or even their patients that they do not possess adequate insurance cover. Doctors should do this as a matter of course but, unfortunately, it does not happen.

The UK Government sought to introduce mandatory indemnity for doctors and the relevant legislation was approved by Westminster in 2006. In parallel to bringing forward that legislation, the UK Government also sought to make indemnity compulsory for other health care professionals such as nurses and midwives. Whether we want to take that route is another issue, but we should consider what the UK authorities are doing to discover if we should put in place a similar system. South Africa and other countries have also taken steps to introduce legislation relating to mandatory indemnity for doctors.

Ultimately, patients will benefit and doctors will be afforded protection if mandatory indemnity is introduced. The Bill will enable the Irish Medical Council to set the appropriate levels of insurance that will be held by different classes of practitioners. It will also exempt different categories of practitioners from the necessity of holding such indemnity. It is important that the legislation should also apply to the many doctors who are not domiciled in Ireland but who practise in private clinics here on a regular basis. It is becoming increasingly common for people to come here from abroad to carry out certain procedures on a particular day of the week or perhaps once a month.

I welcome the Bill. As already stated, I am familiar with a situation involving a particular individual which would never have arisen if the necessity to possess mandatory indemnity had been in place.

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