Dr. Ruairi Dwyer:

I return to Deputy Ó Caoláin's earlier question on whether there is a risk of decreased donations with presumed consent, and there is. That is why many of my colleagues are concerned about this. Brazil introduced presumed consent some 15 years ago and it was followed by a decrease in donations, so they reversed it. The experience in Europe has been different. Where European countries have introduced presumed consent, associated with a strong campaign to gain social support for this, there seems to have been an associated increase in donations. There is data from two centres in Belgium where one centre adopted presumed consent and the other did not. There was a major difference in organ donation rates over the following couple of years in the presumed consent centre.