Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are a couple of issues.

The Minister said we were introducing a two-tier system. That was not our choice. We succeeded in getting an amendment passed which meant that all reporting was mandatory. We believe this is absolutely necessary to guard against the cultural deficit that exists inside the HSE in particular. However, having met officials from the Department of Health, who had concerns about the impact of that, we agreed at their behest that we would adopt the British model and zone in on the more serious incidents. It is disingenuous to use a gesture that we made in order to deal with the Department's concerns as a reason for saying our amendments are not fit for purpose.

It is also illustrative that we were contacted by the Department yesterday, who said that the definitions we had were quite good and that there was nothing wrong with them per sé but that our proposal would be moved in a different piece of legislation. I have a couple of problems with that. The idea of what we are proposing being open to challenge was not introduced previously. This is a new argument. Departmental officials agreed with us. It was an amicable meeting and there were no hard and fast sides to the debate, but rather there was an agreement that what we should be striving towards is a position of the best open disclosure possible. The departmental officials agreed with us that the evidence was not there to support the contention that it is game over in terms of voluntary disclosure. On the other hand we have good examples of mandatory reporting in other jurisdictions. The Minister, at the eleventh hour, is saying the Department of Health will introduce legislation in the future. The problem we have is that five months have passed since Committee Stage. We made ourselves available at every turn to meet the Department. There is no meat on the Minister's proposals for how this will be dealt with. It is civil service time, and we have lost a valuable opportunity. While I am not in any way questioning the Minister's bone fides, the problem is that the only amendment to the legislation before the House is to remove the one change made on Committee Stage. That does not signal an intent to work together.

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