Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Sometimes the most difficult changes to make are cultural and attitude changes - they are not the most expensive but they are often the most difficult. A few years ago, we were all encouraged, as patients - which I am sure we all will be at some stage of our lives - to ask clinicians whether they had washed their hands. However, it is not quite that simple when a patient is solely reliant on that clinician for his or her care. There must be a cultural shift in terms of hand hygiene. As I said earlier, which one of us would start to prepare our food without washing our hands? When talking about an area where, by its very nature, there is a risk of infection, we have to be far more careful.

In regard to the legislation, we are trying to have the domestic legislation front-loaded in the next session because we feel it is important given all the work that had to be done in regard to the financial mess in which we found ourselves. We are trying to front-load the domestic legislation and I hope this Bill will be taken as well.

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