Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome everybody here. I found the presentations informative and inspiring. To be truthful, when I have read about a living donor I wondered how I would respond if my brother looked me in the eye and said "Bill, it's life or death for me". I admire the people who have donated. Many of us would probably find it hard to make such a judgment call.

With regard to the broader issue, I support the soft opt-out option. Some people may know Dr. Patrick Hennessy from Cork who advocated donating and received a kidney. I know him very well and have visited him a number of times. Ireland has a low donation rate of only 20 organ donations per 1 million of population. I do not have an intimate knowledge of the infrastructure that is required. I have wondered whether the low rate is due to a cultural or religious factors. Is there a reason we do not proactively donate organs? Ireland is an altruistic nation in many ways. Is there a reason Ireland does not rank high in the table of countries that donate organs? Is it simply that we do not have the proper infrastructure? Do we not have enough donor co-ordinators in the trauma units and accident and emergency units in hospitals? Are there other reasons?

Very often legislation does not necessarily change the public's mind but it obliges Governments to do things about the legislation that they have enacted which means putting in place infrastructure in hospitals to encourage and allow organ donation. We must remember that two patients are involved in the process, the one that donates and the one that receives. I hope that organ donor co-ordinators in hospitals will have a strong understanding of donation and be trained in how to deal sensitively with people. Co-ordinators will have to deal with people whose loved one has or is going to have his or her life support machine turned off and his or her family will have strong emotions.

A family sent me information that their young child had been involved in a car accident but had subsequently died. Afterwards the parents regretted that they had not made the decision to donate his organs. They were very emotional. At the time their only focus was on their son and they never looked beyond that but sometime later they regretted not donating his organs. Whatever decision is reached on legislation and the presumed consent or soft opt-out, we must ensure that in all cases the family is consulted. It does not matter whether it is a hard or soft opt-out, in every case the family must be consulted and the infrastructure must be put in place.

I listened to wonderful comments on organ donation made by Mr. Joe Brolly, Mr. Shane Finnegan, Ms Noreen O'Halloran and others. Very often the committee talks about policy and administration but on this occasion it should promote the concept of organ donation. Aside from dealing with the appropriate legislation, we should advocate strongly and give people a platform to express ways to develop organ donation. We are talking about life and death here but organ donation needs proper administration. There have been advances in technology, medical technologies and immuno-suppressants. We should also examine North-South relations and the possibility of a strong island-based transplant system just like what we are doing for rare communicable diseases. We should work closely with the UK in that context. I know that there is strong co-operation between various hospitals. We should also set up an infrastructure that will allow us to improve our ranking in the league of organ donation. We need a strong international co-ordinating body and the EU is working on same. Mr. Joe Brolly and others have saved lives and are inspiring, I am emotional even talking about it. I am squeamish at the best of times and I do not like going to hospitals.