Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for having to leave the meeting to take a call. I thank the witnesses for their presentation. As a mother and grandmother, I could feel Mr. Roche’s loss, love and most of all, his compassion for other people in a similar position. I live near the Coombe hospital and there is a mass there every year. Attendance has grown over the years rather than subsiding and more people are coming to the mass who are a long time bereaved. My sister lost her baby more than 40 years ago. He was stillborn. There is a huge sense of loss for the parents, family and extended family. Members of our family and I found it very difficult even to talk to my sister and her husband about their loss. It was not due to a lack of concern but inability to find the niche. Féileacáin has helped people to move into this area and openly talk about a deceased child. Before I left home this morning, I had the privilege of feeding my new granddaughter. She is five weeks old and a beauty and it is difficult to imagine our house without her presence and the love and warmth we all feel for her. She lives in Ashbourne but visits us on occasion, so I am privileged to hold her for a few minutes early in the morning.

Many of my questions have already been asked. Members of my family have lost babies at certain stages of their lives. I often go to Glasnevin with my sister because that is where her little child was buried. If she could replay it, she would have buried her son herself. My mother had twins and lost one of them. The surviving twin, my brother, is 65, and I remember my mother speaking about the deceased baby in the sense that she did not know where he was. At the time it was normal practice that the child would be taken from the parents, and this lived with her up to her own death at the age of 89.

Moving on from any bereavement is a very difficult road, but moving on from the loss of a child, whether the child was 18 weeks, 24 weeks, two days old or any age, is one of the biggest hurdles a parent can go through. It leaves a hole in their lives that they find very difficult. The constant reminder that somebody has entered into one's life, albeit for a short time, leaves that sense of loss. I congratulate the witnesses on their efforts and what they are doing here this morning. It is very important, not only for them but for the hundreds, and probably thousands we do not know about, of parents who are still lost and do not know where they should go. I hope things work out and as a member of the health committee I will support their appeal.