Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To follow up on the events in the past 24 hours, it is important to realise there are more than 100,000 people working in the HSE and the health service and one cannot implement change overnight. It will take time and will be a long drawn out process. I have heard people complain about the lack of change and I have heard people say it is difficult to manage a small company with two or three people; therefore, one can imagine trying to deal with a system in which there are more than 100,000 people employed. Many changes have occurred in the past 12 to 18 months but there are many more changes to be made. The Government will deliver on its universal health care policy and on the roll out of primary care but it will not be done overnight and will take time.

I refer to the insurance issue raised by Senator Quinn. There has been major change in the past ten years but the one area in which there has not been change is medical negligence which is outside the remit of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board.

This area needs to be looked at and we need to set up a system for dealing with it. The Quirke report dealt with compensation by way of instalments, which has been introduced in the UK, an issue at which we need to look. A very sad situation arose recently where the family of a young child aged five or six years received a ¤5 million award, rightly so. Unfortunately, the problem was that the young person died about four weeks after the award was made. The sad part was that while the claim was pending, there were no additional moneys made available to the parents. That is the reason the issue of instalment payments needs to be looked at, as well as implementation and the Quirke report.

We also need to look at reducing the costs involved in medical negligence, which I think came to over ¤125 million last year. It is not under the remit of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board but it needs to be looked at. I am not saying the board has the criteria to deal with it but it is an area we need to look at. In fairness, the State Claims Agency, under the management of Ciarán Breen, has done an excellent job in dealing with the area of medical negligence. For example, at one stage, one was treated to the sight of teams of legal people defending claims but that is now down to one legal team. At least, there has been some reduction but much more work needs to be done. It is an area we need to look at and it would be appropriate to have a debate on that issue.