Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept what the Minister is saying. This is yet another long-fingering of a critical aspect of healthcare, namely, the duty of candour. We have talked about this for many years. It is absolutely central to so many of the cases we see resolved in the High Court, the Supreme Court or on the steps of the courts. Earlier, I referred to the two cases yesterday. We cannot continue to dodge this issue. In fairness, the Minister had plenty of notice of this. Dr. Scally has been absolutely clear about the importance of the duty of candour in open disclosure from the very start. He has been an advocate of this for a very long time. We know the experience of 2015, when the then Government backed off this issue. We should not allow it to continue any longer. At the top of the relevant section in Dr. Scally's report, in the context of the duty of candour, the following appears:

I deserve to know the truth

To be told the truth

I deserve answers

I deserve justice

I deserve for this never to have happened

I deserve closure

I deserve for it to be over

Those things will never happen until there is an absolute duty of candour, which will ensure that clinicians, hospitals and healthcare bodies do not try cover their tracks with regard to serious incidents, fail to provide clear answers or fail to be straight up with people from the outset. That is what people who are the victims of serious incidents want. They want honesty. They want openness. The idea of kicking this down the road until other legislation, which we may or may not see during the term of this Government, is drafted is simply not acceptable. For that reason, and in deference to the very clear recommendations from Dr. Scally, I will be pressing the amendment.

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