In a major announcement in November 2015 in response to a range of issues about patient safety the Taoiseach said the Health Information and Patient Safety Bill 2015 would make mandatory the reporting of events which had resulted in death or serious harm. At the time the heads of the Bill had been published but in May 2018 the Bill remains in Schedule B. It has been around for a long time. In 2015 it was specifically stated mandatory reporting of events which had resulted in deaths or serious harm would be introduced. A year later this was changed at the request of the Chief Medical Officer. This happened around the time of the Portlaoise scandal. Will the Taoiseach explain why it is taking so long for the legislation to be enacted? He will be aware of the scandal in Portlaoise which, as I understand it, provoked the major announcement of this legislation and a suite of other measures, but there is no sign of it being placed in the Statute Books any time soon. Will the Taoiseach explain the reason for the delay? It is does not speak well of the legislative process or this House that a Bill of this import takes so long to enact.

It is still intended to do it. There are two reasons for the delay. First, the legislation, as I announced it in 2015, was to be the Health Information and Patient Safety Bill. To fast-track the mandatory open disclosure of serious reportable events, the Bill is to be split. The patient safety aspect is to be withdrawn in order that the Bill can be fast-tracked. The Minister will bring forth a memo in that regard in the next week or two. Second, as I announced at the time, it was part of a programme of reform in the civil legal system and of patient safety law. It is important to acknowledge what has been done. It is not the case that nothing was done in the two-year period.

Nothing was done on the Bill.

What was done, for example, was providing for voluntary open disclosure via the Civil Liability Act, as passed last year, and periodic payment. To move away from a system of awards of €15 million and €20 million, we now have periodic payment orders which allow payments to be made over a period of time and which can be reviewed as a patient's case changes.

That legislation was passed also. We also passed the Legal Services Regulation Act, which brings in pre-action protocols. The point of pre-action protocols is to speed up cases and make sure people do not get stuck in the courts for years. We also enacted the Mediation Act because we would prefer if matters such as this could be dealt with by mediation rather than going to trial at all. This is all part of a programme of reforms that have been waiting for a long time to get done. Many of these were done in the past two years and this is the next one.

The Civil Liability (Amendment) Bill has not been mentioned.

It has been enacted.

On the same issue, I want to be sure I understand what the Taoiseach is saying. In 2015 the Government pulled the plug on mandatory open disclosure as a statutory duty of candour. The Taoiseach was on the record that he thought it was a good idea, but on the basis of information or advice, he backed away from it. That was a mistake but that is what he did. The Taoiseach now tells us that the health information and patient safety Bill, which is on the B list, is being fast-tracked. Is there not a contradiction inherent in this? It sounds to me that the Taoiseach was not keen on this proposition and he is now moving under pressure. I welcome the fact he is moving on the matter but I would like the Taoiseach to tell the House, not in some vague way, exactly when we will see this legislation. Do not pretend this was something on the to-do list when clearly the Taoiseach had wrongly backed away from it. That was a mistake. Now, because of this appalling turn of events, it is back on the Government's agenda. This is the correct thing to do. There should not have been a delay but we are where we are.

Perhaps the Taoiseach will explain how something that is being fast-tracked could be on a B list. This does not make any sense to me. Is the Taoiseach moving it on to an A list or is there some kind of supercharged approach to this now? It needs to happen quickly. It is part of the public confidence thing the Taoiseach is keen on.

I had hoped I had explained. I obviously did not but I will try again to explain the situation as I did earlier. A decision was taken in 2015 as part of a package of patient safety measures I announced, many of which have now happened. I have listed some of the measures that happened over the past two years. A lot has been done. At the time it was my intention to do mandatory open disclosure at the same time as voluntary open disclosure. Having taken advice from the Chief Medical Officer and from my officials, who had consulted with stakeholders, a decision was taken to do voluntary open disclosure first and mandatory open disclosure for serious reportable incidents at a later date. That is in the programme for Government. We put this into the programme for Government and it has been in the programme for two years. As I mentioned earlier, the Joint Committee on Health examined this matter only in the last year. It listened to all the stakeholders and considered the matter. This all-party Joint Committee on Health also recommended that we should do voluntary open disclosure first and then mandatory open disclosure for serious reportable events at a later date. This is what we are doing.

With reference to-----

There are no supplementary questions, unfortunately.

The account the Taoiseach has given does not actually tally with accounts and the turn of events as reflected at the time. I hope the record of the Dáil is correct.