Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is the first time Senator Ahearn has taken the Order of Business during this mandate, so I wish him well with that. All of us across the country were absolutely shocked when, nine years ago, we heard of the appalling murder of Clodagh Hawe and her three sons, Liam, Niall and Ryan, by their husband and dad. I was very moved over the weekend to hear her sister Jacqueline Connolly speaking eloquently about the impact that horrific tragedy had on their family. I had not realised there had been two previous tragedies in the family. Sometimes it is awful to hear how much any one family has to endure. Jacqueline has just finished writing a book called Deadly Silence. She feels very strongly, and I agree with her, that the serious crime review findings in this case should be released and would be of particular importance to domestic violence services in understanding the background to what happened.

Separate to that, there has been an independent study on familicide and domestic and family violence death reviews which made 212 recommendations. Three consultation groups were established: a family consultation group to support victims, a cross-functional interdepartmental group and an advisory group of NGOs. I understand the Minister is meeting with the groups and that a lot of work has been carried out on some recommendations, particularly the one on guardianship rights. It is important to ask the Minister to come to the House to have a debate on those 212 recommendations, get a progress report on where some of the important recommendations are and look into the ones that have not been advanced.

The other issue I want to speak about relates to electronic health records. Data for patients is typically held in separate systems across separate care settings. Commitments have been made to develop a national shared care record which will enable healthcare professionals working in acute hospitals to see information about the care a patient is receiving in the community and vice versa. This is critical to the reform of our healthcare. Equally so is a national electronic health record system providing a digital health record of a patient's journey through life. All of this is expected to improve clinical outcomes for patients. It is important we get information on where we are with these two types of data-sharing systems that will help professionals and patients.