Every year, families are dragged through the courts at significant personal and financial cost to them and to each and every one of us, as citizens, just because they are trying to get answers on medical mistakes. We have had promise after promise to introduce medical disclosure legislation. The Patient Safety (Notifiable Patient Safety Incidents) Bill 2019 was eventually referred, 18 months ago, to Committee Stage with the Select Committee on Health. The Bill has, however, lain there since. This legislation would allow families to get to the truth of what happened to loved ones. It would allow those dealing with the consequences of a medical mistake or misdiagnosis to get redress. The State is continuing to fork out large sums of money for legal fees when we should be providing people with the truth. Where is this legislation and when will it be enacted?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The purpose of the Patient Safety (Notifiable Patient Safety Incidents) Bill 2019 is to set out the legislative framework for a number of important patient safety measures, including mandatory open disclosure of specified serious patient safety incidents, including a process to designate other patient safety incidents by regulation in line with advancements in clinical practice, the notification of these serious incidents externally to the Health Information and Quality Authority, and so forth. Work on drafting amendments was delayed in 2020 but it has now progressed and is currently being finalised in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. It is anticipated that this work will conclude in the coming weeks and that the Bill will be ready to come to Committee Stage early in the autumn session.