The soaring cost of medical negligence claims has become one of the most pressing challenges facing Ireland’s health system, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has warned.
Speaking at the association’s annual conference in Kilkenny, IHCA President Professor Gabrielle Colleran said the estimated liability linked to health-related claims handled by the State Claims Agency now stands at €5.3 billion — and continues to grow. She cautioned that the mounting costs are draining vital healthcare resources and eroding morale among medical professionals.
Professor Colleran called for “progressive reforms” to help reduce both the financial and emotional strain caused by medical negligence cases. Among her key recommendations were measures to lessen the health service’s reliance on costly overseas expert witnesses.
Former National Maternity Hospital master, Professor Rhona Mahony, told delegates that more than half of all medical negligence costs are related to catastrophic brain injuries, highlighting the devastating consequences of such cases.
Representing the State Claims Agency, Philip Fagan said the agency receives around 650 new claims each year, the majority of which are eventually settled. Some ongoing cases, he noted, date back to incidents from the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Mr Fagan stressed the need for a “fairer, quicker, smarter and non-adversarial” legal process to handle such claims, and announced that new pre-action protocols are expected to be introduced next year to streamline proceedings. “No health professional goes into hospital to do harm,” he said, noting that staff often work under immense pressure and fatigue, which can lead to mistakes.
The IHCA also expressed frustration that recent increases in health funding have not resulted in significant improvements in patient care. Professor Colleran rejected suggestions that consultants were to blame for the lack of progress, insisting that doctors remain committed to productivity and reform.
She argued that even if all consultant vacancies were filled immediately, chronic deficits in hospital infrastructure would still prevent meaningful improvement in service delivery.
Meanwhile, the Health Service Executive (HSE) reported a strong uptake among consultants of the new “public-only” contract introduced in 2023 to curb private practice in public hospitals. Of the 4,900 consultants employed by the HSE, around 65% have now signed the new agreement.
Base salaries for these posts range from €233,000 to €277,000 per year, with additional allowances for roles such as academic professorships. The HSE said the highest contract uptake has been recorded at the Mater University Hospital, Galway University Hospital, and St James’s Hospital in Dublin — a shift it credits with helping to ease overcrowding in some facilities.
While acknowledging some progress, Professor Colleran warned that it remains insufficient: “One patient on a trolley is still one too many,” she said.
