Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I express my deepest sympathies to the family of Savita Halappanavar and her husband, Praveen, as the anniversary of her tragic death on 28 October 2012 approaches. The report published by the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, into the circumstances of Ms Halappanavar's death makes difficult reading for her family and many others, especially women and those involved in the provision of front-line maternity care services.

Last year, the Health Service Executive in Galway gave an assurance that an implementation plan would be put in place to ensure maternity services would be monitored and failings addressed. The bigger issue, however, is maternity services at national level. For example, the HIQA report highlights deficiencies in the implementation of guidelines in the area of sepsis. Another key issue highlighted is a lack of resources which is creating significant pressure on the delivery of front-line maternity services. The issue has also been raised by the Masters of the Rotunda and Holles Street maternity hospitals and other obstetricians. As I have stated in previous discussions of this issue, this is not a political point but a matter of ensuring that women have absolute confidence in our maternity services.

What is now required is the immediate establishment of an implementation body to assess and review the Health Service Executive's commitments to implement the plans it has outlined. More important, the HIQA report on the death of Savita Halappanavar and other matters must be implemented in full. Will the Tánaiste give a commitment to hold a full, independent review and audit of maternity services, including the staffing and resourcing of same, and to ensure that any deficiencies highlighted in such an audit will be made public as quickly as possible?

One area on which immediate action could be taken is front-line maternity care services, which have been shown definitively to be under significant pressure. There is a shortage of midwives, maternity hospitals are under-resourced and we have a low ratio of obstetricians to population. With 70,000 births each year in this country, we should have many more obstetricians. Will the Tánaiste give a commitment to act on the recommendations of the report? Will he also undertake to lift the embargo or moratorium on the recruitment of front-line staff for maternity services?

See this speech in context