Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to thank the Ceann Comhairle for an opportunity to speak on this matter. I also wish to thank the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, for participating in this debate. I welcome his announcement to the media yesterday that he will proceed with an independent HIQA inquiry into the deaths of babies in Portlaoise Hospital. The families concerned and a cross-section of Deputies have been calling for such an inquiry.

After the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar and the HIQA report that was conducted into her death, the HSE's national director of quality and patient safety said that there would need to be a clear analysis of where staffing does not match demand. He promised that he would address that matter. On Sunday, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, appeared on The Week in Politics programme and stated that Ireland is a very safe place in which to have a baby. He also said that Ireland does much better in this regard compared to England or Scotland. I want to believe that that is the case but I have to be honest and say that after meeting with the parents of one of the Portlaoise babies, baby Mark Molloy, I am deeply concerned that this is not the case. I am concerned by what the Molloys have indicated to me privately, as well as by what was revealed in the Prime Time documentary last week. Furthermore, very little has been done since the last HIQA report into the Halappanavar case when Dr. Crowley assured the public that these issues would be addressed.

Baby Mark Molloy's death, as well as the deaths of baby Nathan, baby Joshua and other unnamed babies - whose information we do not have and whose parents have not been made privy to it - were not reported by the clinicians at Portlaoise Hospital to the national perinatal epidemiology centre in UCC.

On the Order of Business earlier today I raised with the Taoiseach the fact that the independent research centre is used to advise the Minister for Health, the HSE and the public on the standard of maternity care.

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