I acknowledge the Deputy’s very long-standing work on this issue. My Department and the HSE work continuously to monitor and improve patient safety and reduce incidents of harm. The Government recently approved the establishment of an interdepartmental working group to examine the rising cost of health-related claims and consider mechanisms to reduce costs. The group will examine the rising cost of clinical negligence claims in the health system with a particular focus on high-value claims, many of which relate to …

I fully accept and appreciate the Deputy’s frustration. As he noted, he has been talking about this for more than 20 years. I fully accept that. He will be aware that in mid-June 2018, the Government received a comprehensive report from Mr. Justice Charles Meenan on clinical negligence. My understanding is that it was intended in early 2020 to do exactly what the Deputy is calling for - to pull this group together, examine the international evidence and introduce something here for exactly the reasons outlined by h…

That is a partial characterisation. A lot of the work required to do this was undertaken. On foot of a request from my Department, the Health Research Board did an extensive international evidence review. It looked at Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, the US and the UK.

That was a legitimate part of the work, which was submitted to my predecessor in March 2019. The very clear advice I have is that the Department was fully intent on doing this. It is complex. Sensitive policy decisions have to be made and extensive legal advice has to be obtained. I accept the Deputy’s bona fides on this and I agree we need this scheme. At this point, the only reason we do not have it is that all the people required to put it together were, for obvious reasons, pulled on to Covid for two years. Now…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 and 57 together. I thank the Deputy. This matter is also important to me and we are pushing very hard on it. The assisted human reproduction, AHR, legislation would have been passed and in operation by now. With broad political agreement, we paused it to ensure we could bring in some substantial amendments on Committee Stage around surrogacy. In mid-September last year, I secured Government approval for the policy approach in respect of the regulation of international surrogacy. T…

I would love to see that happen. It depends on the time the Joint Committee on Health is able to give over to the Bill. I am conscious the committee has a huge amount of work on its plate but hopefully it will give over the time. I will get it over to it for its review shortly. We need to do the retrospective element as part of the legislation. It is really important. Like Deputy Funchion and many other colleagues, I have met the parents, the mums and dads, and the kids. It is going to be a great day when we pass t…

The Egans were in with us as part of the group when we announced this. It was a great honour to meet them. The answer to the Deputy’s question is "Yes". On whether the retrospective element requires the new agency to be set up, the answer is "No". We are very deliberately putting the legislation together in such a way that parents will be able to go for court orders and it will not require the agency to be set up. The agency will take time to set up. It will need to hire staff and will then be involved in developin…

GPs are contracted under the GMS scheme to make arrangements for their patients to be able to make contact outside of normal practice hours. Commonly, GPs are working with co-operatives to do this. SouthDoc provides an excellent and important service to people in counties Kerry and Cork. I acknowledge the commitment of the nurses, doctors and other staff providing urgent out-of-hours care in Cork and Kerry, as well as those who are working with GP out-of-hours services throughout the country. Nevertheless, I recogn…

I fully acknowledge that, particularly around Castletownbere and other areas, it is a great worry for parents or anybody else that getting to a GP could involve a long and difficult drive at night. That is not something we want to see. There are several things we are doing which will take time but will make a big difference. For example, we are trebling the number of GPs in training. That will take time to deliver the number of GPs we need but it will result in a substantial increase in GP numbers. What can we do i…

I am very happy to look at the situation in Bantry General Hospital. We are expanding access to the medical assessment units as part of an expansion in urgent care. If there is a shortage of fleet in the Deputy's area, I will talk to the National Ambulance Service about that. We have invested a significant amount of money in the service this year and last year. It is expanding and modernising its fleet and hiring and training many more paramedics and advanced paramedics. The ambulance service is not there yet but i…

I am very aware that despite all the progress on Covid, long Covid is causing a great deal of suffering for people. We heard some testimony earlier on "Morning Ireland", which the Deputy may have heard, from people who are suffering from long Covid. We also heard, however, from the clinical leads about what is happening, and it is clear services are being put in place, as they must be. To ensure people who need the care get it, the HSE has developed a plan for national long Covid services, which are being rolled ou…

I agree with the Deputy on all that. The good news, as he said, is that for the vast majority of people, a relatively short amount of rehabilitation and health support leads to full recovery. I have met patients whose lives have just been turned upside down. I have met patients in my own constituency. I have met patients in Tallaght hospital who are being treated in the long Covid clinic there and they are just devastated. They have gone from healthy active people, and, in some cases, healthy active mums and dads, …

We do not want anybody waiting long for this for obvious reasons. Part of what we are doing now with these new clinics around the country is staffing having them. We will have 14 clinics, and then the St. James's facility as well. People can also get initial treatment from their GP, which is an important message. Where more specialist care is required, we are putting these new services in place. They are still hiring. We want to, and our aim is, put in enough capacity that we can make sure people get quick access. …

I fully agree with the premise of the Deputy's question. Before getting into what we are doing to speed it up, it is important to state that in spite of an extremely cumbersome process that leads us to being able to put new infrastructure in place, the Government has over the past three years expanded infrastructure and added critical care beds, diagnostics and primary care centres at a rate that has not been seen since, and likely long before, the HSE was founded. We need to give credit, dare I say, "to Government…

In answer to the Deputy's first question, each of those projects is a separate project in terms of the €100 million versus €200 million. It will not come as a surprise to any of us that several of those projects will cost well in excess of the €200 million but, critically, even where they will, and where the public spending code to date has five separate approval stages and I have had to bring memorandum after memorandum to Government, for example, on the elective hospitals, much to the frustration of everyone in g…

I will try to give each 20 seconds. Regarding Galway and the smaller projects, I fully agree that is an issue in Galway and right across the country. It takes us too long. A few things need to happen. Capital allocation needs to be sufficient and, second, there needs to be much more efficient processing of these. I could not agree more. We are working with the HSE. I am engaged directly with the chief executive on exactly that. Let me get Deputy Dillon an update on Ballyhaunis. If I need to intervene, I absolutely …

I was reviewing the Deputy's question yesterday and was not sure whether he was specifically interested in the new genetics strategy, in the heel prick test, or in some other localised services. I asked the Department to make contact with the Deputy. I do not know if that happened. I apologise if my answer does not exactly reflect where the Deputy wants it to go.

The Deputy might clarify in his response and I will try to be more useful. I will answer about the new genetics and genomics strategy, which will address exactly the issues the Deputy has raised. A number of important developments are under way. I start by acknowledging the premise of the question, which is that Ireland's genetics and genomics services are not where they need to be. We need to expand the heel prick test. Les Martin and others have done significant work on that. We need to expand our capacity for ge…

Regarding how many staff have been recruited and the plans to scale up the service, I will ask the Department to revert about its thinking and aims on that. The Deputy asked a question specifically about Crumlin. Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin is a hospital which currently provides genetic tests. The genetics lab conducts cytogenic analysis and molecular genetic analysis. I am aware of a recent campaign to increase the facilities, resources and services for patients at Crumlin. Inevitably, as we move to the n…

I will ask the Department to revert to him on the intended timescales.