Legal News (Healthcare Law)

On 22 January 2015, a Dáil Joint Committee on Health and Children looked at the challenge of the rising cost of professional medical indemnity insurance.

The Medical Protection Society (MPS) has mounted a strong campaign for reform of the Irish legal system in relation to clinical (medical) negligence claims.

CORU, Ireland’s multi-profession health and social care regulator, has been given the power to deal with complaints from members of the public in relation to certain registered social or health care professionals. Effective from 31 December 2014, this empowerment allows CORU to send complaints to a Committee of Inquiry to adjudicate on Fitness to Practise where it deems it necessary.

In a recent Supreme Court Judgment, Ms Justice Laffoy dismissed the appeal of Bridget Doyle, who died before the hearing of her appeal had been concluded, on the grounds that none of the heads of damages in her claim survived her death.

Described by Chief Justice Susan Denham as the “most important development” in the judicial system since independence, the Court of Appeal was established on 29 October 2014. Our Healthcare Team outlines how the new court works.

Since the 1992 case of Attorney General v X (the X case) termination of pregnancy in Ireland is lawful if it is established as a matter of probability that there is a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother and that such risk could only be avoided by termination. Ireland has been found to be in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights, however, owing to its