Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a good strategy but it is a long way from being implemented. It was followed by a report on midwifery numbers which suggested that to implement the measures in the strategy, a midwife to birth ratio of 1:29.5. would have to be achieved, which would require the recruitment of an additional 450 midwives and not just the 100 who have been recruited. While I welcome their recruitment at a cost of €3 million, there has been a twelvefold increase in litigation taken by women who have been damaged by our maternity services in precisely the same period that the budgets for maternity hospitals were cut. Maternity cases represent more than half the claims dealt with by the State Claims Agency, which is absolutely scandalous. The link between the two cannot be denied. Why are all these women and families suffering? A fraction of the amount spent by the State on legal costs and damages on maternity services would transform them.

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