Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome this debate. It was not too long ago we were arguing about the duty of candour. I recognise that the Minister will look at the Part 5 review and strengthen that. What this House is about is debating it. We are all trying to sing from the same hymn sheet here.

I was a little surprised when the Minister was on about the 50:50 for yea and nay on the audits. That is something, I suppose, that can be tweaked.

One of the other speakers mentioned going back to the Select Committee on Health with some of this. The Minister said he is worried about the timeframe. It is a sensitive Bill but if it needs time, we should treat it with that respect.

As I said, my big bugbear here is still whether we can put the duty of candour on a statutory basis. We need this Bill to be as strong as possible. As I stated previously, there is very little oversight within the HSE. There is very little responsibility. If something goes wrong, nobody is held accountable. We need that accountability. We need that strength in the background.

As I said at the start, I am looking forward to the debate so that we can get something right. If we get this wrong, it is a legacy that all of us will have to live with. I would much prefer if we tweaked this out a lot more and continued the discussion. Hopefully, this Bill will come out as one of the best Bills that ever came out of the House and serve the people of this country. That is what we are supposed to do.

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