Seanad debates

Wednesday, 4 July 2018

Civil Liability (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill 2018: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Alice-Mary HigginsAlice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief so as to ensure that there is adequate time for Senator Devine to come back in.

I support this Bill. It was unfortunate that when the Civil Liability (Amendment) Act 2017 passed through these Houses more recently that the change was made at that time to go from "shall" to "may". I appreciate the Minister's sincerity and I believe he is serious about engaging with and looking at this issue. I also note that there will be a patient safety Bill that will come before us. That will be a Government Bill and no doubt it will have the potential to pass out and overtake this Bill. I think we would all be very happy to see that. Having the pressure point of this very useful, practical and reasonable amendment Bill on the books can only add an appropriate impetus to the patient safety Bill to ensure its speedy passage and to ensure it is given the priority that is needed.

The recent tragic and unacceptable and outrageous situation on cervical cancer, which others have touched on, and screening is just one example of the importance of taking very seriously what we do in terms of ensuring patient safety. There are three strands to the process, the work of prevention, the work of information and then the work of reparation. I appreciate that the civil liability Act was designed to take that work of reparation and place it in a slightly different place so as to ensure that the important work of information was not compromised in any way. I hope to bring forward legislation later in the year on prevention, looking at the issue of how we issue contracts and the importance of quality in all public procurement contracts on health.

This Bill focuses on that crucial issue of information which states that people "must" be informed of key issues of interest to them. The question of what might be serious or not serious is ambiguous. I think it is appropriate that this Bill is enacted to put pressure on the patient safety Bill. Having worked in a completely separate but parallel area of data protection, namely, data breaches, I was concerned about the large number of exceptions under which Government and public bodies allowed themselves to not have to disclose to people where their personal data had been breached.

The devil is in the detail in determining what may or may not be considered serious in respect of a data breach and much more vitally in this area in regard to patient health safety. The seriousness cannot be underestimated. The seriousness may not be known because those who are determining whether it is a serious enough breach do not know the circumstances of the individual. They do not know the decisions that a person might be making without information and making blind decisions in ignorance of an issue that deeply affects him or her.

This is a very positive Bill. I think we should accept it. I note the concerns raised by Senator Colm Burke that sometimes the process is very long in terms of the full exposure and the full investigation of an issue, but this is provided for because there is both the initial information of the safety concern and in the Bill there are also proposals that additional information should be given to them, and that may be two or three years later. The fact that all the information is not in place at once does not stop an initial disclosure. That is provided for separately.

A very constructive use of language is moving from "at any time" - which is quite vague - to "as is reasonably practicable". That recognises that there will be times when one is waiting for information, when reports need to come back when an expert has been brought it, but it still keeps a clock moving to ensure that things are moving towards getting the patient that information and there is a very reasonable test of "as is reasonably practicable" that is running underneath the process. For all of those reasons I strongly support the Bill, which is very constructive. While I welcome everything else the Minister is also doing, we should vote in favour of the Bill today.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.