Ireland Doesn’t Have a General Class-Action System - Another Reason We Need a National Endo Inquiry
Today I published a new article explaining another important reason why I believe Ireland needs a National Endometriosis Inquiry.
Ireland does not have a general class-action system comparable to jurisdictions such as the United States, where large numbers of people with similar claims can potentially pursue them collectively through one class action.
There are limited mechanisms for representative and multi-party litigation in Ireland, but there is no broad class-action procedure through which potentially hundreds or thousands of endometriosis patients can simply bring their experiences of alleged systemic healthcare failures together in one case.
So how do we establish the bigger picture?
Since 2022, I have had a huge number of women contact me about their experiences of endometriosis care in Ireland.
They have contacted me through social media, email and our WhatsApp number.
They have spoken to me at our events.
I have even had women stop me on the street to tell me what happened to them.
Different counties. Different hospitals. Different doctors. Different decades.
But far too often, familiar experiences.
There are also medical professionals and services in Ireland with whom multiple women have told me they have not had positive experiences.
I am not suggesting that every negative experience amounts to negligence, nor should allegations be accepted without evidence.
That is exactly why we need an appropriate, independent and evidence-based mechanism to examine these experiences.
Patients deserve to know whether what happened to them was isolated or whether patterns exist across our healthcare system.
More than 1,065 of you have already signed
More than 1,065 people have now signed this petition calling for a National Inquiry into Endometriosis Care in Ireland.
Thank you.
But we need to keep going.
It is almost a year since I met with the Minister for Health and spoke directly about endometriosis care.
Ireland has since introduced its first National Framework for the Management of Endometriosis, and that progress is important.
But a Framework and an Inquiry answer two very different questions.
The Framework asks: how should we provide endometriosis care now and in the future?
An Inquiry asks: what happened to patients before we got here?
How many women waited years or decades for diagnosis?
How many underwent repeated surgeries?
How many experienced infertility or organ loss?
How many paid privately or travelled abroad?
How many had to leave employment or education?
How many complaints were made?
Were the same concerns appearing repeatedly across different hospitals and services?
And could Ireland have acted sooner?
Minister, it is time to listen
Almost a year after meeting the Minister for Health, I do not believe patients like us are being adequately heard.
The Minister now needs to take leadership and represent the patients whose experiences helped demonstrate why Ireland needed an endometriosis framework in the first place.
This isn’t about attacking doctors.
It is about examining an entire system — including whether healthcare professionals themselves had the training, specialist services, multidisciplinary teams, resources and referral pathways they needed.
But it must also provide patients with somewhere safe to tell their stories.
Advocates should not become an unofficial archive of healthcare failures.
The State has the ability to investigate this properly.
I have written much more about why Ireland’s lack of a general class-action system strengthens the argument for a National Endometriosis Inquiry in my new article:
Please read it and share it.
And if you have already signed this petition, please share the petition again today too.
Send it to someone affected by endometriosis.
Send it to your TD.
Send it to healthcare professionals.
Send it to somebody who has spent years wondering whether what happened to her happened to anyone else.
We have spent decades telling our stories individually.
It is time Ireland examined them collectively.
Thank you for continuing to stand with us.
Doireann Barrett