Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I agree that, on the face of it, these practices were absolutely unacceptable. It is unfortunate that it had to come to light through a doctor like Professor O'Dowd, who informed HIQA of the matter. If I were able to answer all the questions the Deputy has put there would be no need for an investigation. If I was able to put on the record of the House the reason it happened, the management failures that caused it to happen and whether it was based on a lack of resources, there would be no need for an investigation but there is a need for an investigation. The Health Service Executive has announced it. It has not announced who the chair will be or the terms of reference but I am sure today's debate will allow the HSE to inform the terms of reference to ensure they not only reveal exactly what went wrong but also restore public confidence in the process that happens in all our hospitals.

Deputy Ó Caoláin asked whether this could have happened in other hospitals. It is possible that it could have happened in other hospitals and that is the reason, as part of the reforms introduced by the Minister, Deputy Harney, the clinical director of the HSE has appointed a clinical lead specifically for radiology to ensure that problems such as these are tackled directly by the HSE, in conjunction with the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance and HIQA, to achieve the best standards in this country.

I understand there are 12 radiologists in Tallaght hospital at present. As the Deputy said, the new chief executive officer tackled this issue with great speed. As I have already said, the Minister was informed at a meeting that was set up for a different purpose. It was not presented to her as a patient safety issue. Professor Conlon represented to the Minister that it was a matter that was in hand, that the adverse incident protocol was being followed properly and that the correct time to put it in the public domain was when each patient and his or her family was properly informed of the circumstances surrounding the failure to properly report on all of these X-rays.

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