Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their very interesting presentations, which follow on from those given last week. It was lovely last week to hear emotional stories from live donors and to see recipients and how they benefited.

I read some of the opening statements last night and was struck by how little I knew. I did not know that Ireland did not have a specific transplant centre and a faced a serious lack of transplant surgeons into the future. I learned that the programme is run from an office in Beaumont Hospital and has only five co-ordinators, who have other duties to attend to. I had thought we were much further along than that. We seem to be very behind the times. I was also struck by the huge size of the investment required in the system even if we had the donors. I was also struck that a living donor had to pay for his or her own expenses, which are of the order of €5,000 to €7,000. While that is a small amount of money given the return, many people will find they cannot afford those sums. We must be living in the Dark Ages to expect people to do that. I was further struck by the fact that we do not have legislation to cover the scenario in which a person wants to donate an organ and the donor must therefore travel abroad in order to donate.

Most of the questions I wished to raise have been dealt with by other speakers. I thank the witnesses for their contributions. They were a real eye-opener and very informative. I agree 100% that we must apply resources to making people more aware of the organ donor programme and to encouraging donations. As I said, I am a member of the health committee and the presentations have been a significant eye-opener.