Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. As he is aware, I have been involved in the Bill and the previous Minister, Deputy James Reilly, introduced a Private Members' Bill on this matter back in 2009 or 2010. At the time a commitment was given to him by the Department that this would be brought forward. The Bill concerns the necessity for professional indemnity insurance. In 2012 I introduced a Private Members' Bill. I am delighted to see this Bill is being passed and will come into law. It is extremely important at a time when we have so much movement of medical personnel coming to and leaving the country.

The big area affected is that of cosmetic surgery. People come to this country and provide a service and then, unfortunately, do not have adequate insurance. As a solicitor I cannot practise without professional indemnity insurance and no individual can drive in this country without car insurance, but when I started this process in 2012 a doctor could practise without having professional indemnity insurance. While I know all of the people in the HSE and anyone who contracts with it must produce evidence of insurance, people still provide a service in this country without adequate insurance. From this point of view the Bill is important to ensure medical practitioners are protected and, if something goes wrong, the general public is also protected.

We need clarification for people offering services who are not aware their insurance is inadequate, particularly GPs. I have heard of cases of GPs and others providing scanning services. I know of a GP who intended to offer such a service but found the existing insurance policy did not cover it and the premium required would not make it a viable proposition to provide the service. It is important to have insurance and to ensure it adequately covers people for the work they do.

We need to deal with the cost of professional indemnity insurance. The Department is dealing with it from the point of view of the cost of professional indemnity insurance in hospitals. Recently I heard that a particular private hospital cannot employ an orthopaedic consultant because the premium required is more than €104,000 per annum. As a result the position remains vacant. It would cost €2,000 per week for the person to provide the service. I suppose we have to look at the whole courts system as well. Are we doing enough? We brought in the Personal Injuries Assessment Board to deal with car accidents and industrial accidents, but we did not make any major fundamental change in the area of medical indemnity that would deal with the claims that arise when mistakes are made. We need to do something to bring down the costs in this area. People are leaving this country because of the cost of insurance. The moneys they are able to earn are not adequate to pay for insurance. It is something we need to look at.

I am delighted with this legislation. The Minister and the officials in his Department have worked to bring it forward. I am pleased that it will be in place in a very short time. I thank the Minister for his assistance on this matter.