Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The guidelines are not optional and doctors can be struck off for not following them. Open disclosure has been policy for all HSE staff since 2013 and staff can be disciplined for not following open disclosure. The decision we made - it is in the programme for Government in black and white - is to proceed with voluntary open disclosure for all errors and mandatory open disclosure for those most serious errors, what are called serious reportable errors. That is also explained. The Civil Liability (Amendment) Act supports voluntary open disclosure and puts it on a statutory footing. We enacted that in this Dáil in the past couple of months. I, as Taoiseach, led the Government that did that. People have been talking about that for ten or 20 years but this Government got it done.

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