Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to express again my personal shock and sympathy to the people who have been so appalling affected. The non-disclosure was a major failure of public policy, given disclosure has been HSE policy since 2013. It is categorically clear, however, that this never came to the attention of any Minister. When it did come to the attention of Government, very swift action was taken to protect the people affected by way of a package of services, including the provision of a helpline, the establishment of international clinical oversight for any outcomes that come to light and the ones that have come to light, cancer screening rechecks and the establishment of an inquiry, headed by Dr. Scally, through which we will get answers such that this can never happen again. I assure the Deputy that no document that will be withheld from those who want to inquire into what has happened in this instance. There is no attempt by Government to restrict access to information, which the Minister made clear from the outset. The fact that the Committee of Public Accounts is receiving information shows there is no attempt to withhold any information nor is there any attempt to confine the work of Oireachtas committees. Oireachtas committees must work with others who are seeking to get clinical facts, but it is up to those committees to decide how they conduct their business. I fully support this.

On the reason for a staged approach to mandatory disclosure, this has been debated in the House. I understand that an all-party Oireachtas committee recommended the approach of a introducing a voluntary disclosure process initially to encourage a culture change where people could openly discuss failures where they occur and not have this process constrained by liability issues blocking the honest conversations that should happen in a system. We are moving, via the health information and patient safety Bill, to introduce mandatory disclosure for serious incidents. This will be legally binding such that it will be an offence to fail to do so. It was signalled in the programme for Government that we would do this over the five-year programme and we are doing it. The change in regard to civil liability, the policy of disclosure and the legislative framework put in place in this regard was openly debated in the Oireachtas and it was done in the knowledge that mandatory disclosure was to follow.

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