Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 June 2015
649. Deputy Lucinda Creighton asked the Minister for Health the number of claims to the State Claims Agency against individual maternity units for the years 2008 to 2014 and for 2015 to date; if he will provide the information, in tabular form, for each individual maternity unit, by year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21332/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe State Claims Agency has supplied the information requested by the Deputy in aggregate format as follows:
|
Year Claim Received |
No. of claims |
|
2008 |
88 |
|
2009 |
90 |
|
2010 |
117 |
|
2011 |
128 |
|
2012 |
131 |
|
2013 |
182 |
|
2014 |
126 |
|
2015 |
56 |
|
Grand Total |
918 |
*The table reflects the number of claims made under the Speciality of Maternity Services against the Maternity Units in the years 2008 – 2015 (to date). The spike in claims received for 2013 is due to the receipt of historical Symphysiotomy claims.
The State Claims Agency has indicated that the reason it does not publish data concerning the number of legal claims against individual maternity units is that publication of such data could potentially identify a particular plaintiff. Many claims are settled in circumstances where the plaintiffs wish to retain confidentiality concerning the settlement of their cases. The other concern that the Agency has is that if it publishes claims’ data by maternity unit, this could lead to a “league tables” interpretation of the data without any further contextualisation of the data. Under Freedom of Information Legislation claims’ data is expressly exempt.
