Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy is not going to agree with my answer, I am not speaking to him. I am speaking to the women watching this debate and giving them their answer as Minister for Health as to why I believe the issue of a recurrence can be dealt with. They are entitled to hear it.

The second point is that we must be honest with people that this is a voluntary process, not one which is about the State and the women. Unfortunately, we have the complication, as discussed at length on Committee Stage when Deputy Bríd Smith made constructive points about it, that this involves laboratories. We need a woman and a laboratory to sign up. Deputy Kelly has read the Meenan report many times and been helpful during that process. The report states we need both parties to agree to go to the tribunal. Why would anybody go through a process that has a different set of rules from the High Court whereby one could continue to make multiple claims? This is not like the hepatitis C compensation tribunal. It is an adjudicative tribunal of a type for which we have never provided before. It is unprecedented. In this tribunal a judgment will be reached outside a court and it is a process to which we will need both the laboratory and the woman to sign up.

My third point is in direct answer to Deputy Donnelly's constructive points on Committee Stage. He asked what would happen if a woman got a judgment in the court or a tribunal and the cancer came back in five, ten, 15 or 20 years. Cancer can come back over a very long period. There is nothing to stop a woman who wishes to do from taking a new cause of action to the court. I say sincerely to the House - Deputy Kelly knows my record of engaging on this issue - that we have a period of time. Deputy Kelly is right in that regard. I have already given the House a commitment to come back to it in the autumn to expand the scope. I commit to sitting down with all of the Deputies present with the best officials and best minds I can find to see if there is a way to provide reassurance or achieve what Deputies Kelly and Bríd Smith want to achieve. I am happy to engage on that issue. However - this is definitely not Deputy Kelly's suggestion - I am not happy to set up a tribunal that I know will not work. I am not happy to do something in the House that I know will be inoperable.

There are many benefits to this process. I have heard Deputy Kelly and others ask why a woman would go through the tribunal if his amendment has not been made. After he met the women, the State Claims Agency, the laboratory representatives and Dr. Scally, Mr. Justice Meenan outlined on page 20 of his report the advantages of this process over going to the High Court. They include hearings in private, the adoption of pre-hearing protocols, written statements, less formal hearings, a specific forum to hear and determine claims, less costly hearings, fast-tracked hearings where liability cannot be contested and the maintenance of wider recourse. I point out that there are many benefits in the eyes of Mr. Justice Meehan - I agree - in going through this process, but it is an issue on which Deputy Kelly and I will not agree.

I do not understand why the amendment was ruled out of order and share Deputy Kelly's frustration in that regard. I would be more than happy to debate it now just as I did on Committee Stage. Not to put words in his mouth, but the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has honestly said it is bizarre that the amendment was before the select committee but has not been allowed on Report Stage. That is not a matter on which we will agree tonight, but I assure Deputy Kelly that I will engage with the Opposition in a bipartisan manner to address some of these concerns. I will be back in early autumn, in September or October, to expand on the scope. If there is a need to do more, we will do it.

The importance of setting up the tribunal now is real. It allows the tribunal to do much of its preparatory work now, thereby enabling it to hit the ground running in the autumn.

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