Dr. James McDaid:

I will conclude by responding to the questions from Deputies Maureen O'Sullivan and Seán Crowe about the Vatican Summit and the Egyptian transplants situation. The Pope, in a statement he made a couple of years ago, said that he wanted to do his best to stamp out people trafficking and, as an aside, organ trafficking. This is what gave rise to the summit in the Vatican. With regard to China's role in the summit, it was steeped in controversy in that from the outset there were questions about whether the Chinese should even have been invited to the summit, against the background that China, Egypt, Pakistan and India are countries that are deeply involved in organ trafficking. There was no controversy around inviting delegates from India and Pakistan but there was a big question about whether the Chinese should have been invited. Earlier, Mr. Gutmann made the point that the Pope was supposed to address the summit and meet with us all but he pulled out at the last minute because of controversy over the Chinese. He did not want to be seen to be endorsing the Chinese visit or to be photographed with them. The Chinese presented their data. I spoke briefly afterwards with the Deputy Health Minister, Huang Jiefu. In their statement they admitted that they have been executing prisoners for organs in China. They would not be drawn on prisoners of conscience, Falun Gong, and so on but they admitted to large-scale execution of prisoners. The summit was shocked by this, understandably, and people condemned it. It was the one time in the summit when one could palpably feel the temperature was rising. People were arguing and questioning the Chinese delegates and they did not really believe what they were saying. The Chinese said that they have now made it illegal and they are trying to stamp it out but that it is difficult to police with so many hospitals and so on involved. They were met with a lot of scepticism and condemnation.

With regard to the Egyptian situation, there have been many reports recently about Libya being a hot bed of people trafficking. Many refugees from Syria travel to Libya to get transport to Europe on inflatable boats, as a result of which thousands of people have died. In addition, thousands of economic migrants from Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria are congregating in Libya, which right now is a country without a Government. It is lawless and akin to the wild west. The people from Syria and the economic refugees from North Africa pay enormous amounts of money to people traffickers to get passage to Europe. When they arrive in Libya to get on the boats to cross the Mediterranean the people traffickers ask for further payment. When the refugees point out that they already paid in Syria or Sudan for passage to Italy the traffickers tell them that they cannot get on the boats unless they pay again or, that if they donate a kidney it would pay passage for five people, the refugee and four members of his or her family. They do not do the organ harvesting in Libya. It is done in Egypt where there is a better developed health care system. In Egypt their organs are harvested for local people or paying foreign people. Interestingly, the European Union has a special prosecutor in Libya, an Irish man named Aonghus Kelly, who is working on this issue. I told him I was coming here and he is very keen to get involved. I can pass on his contact details to the committee if it is interested in furthering the Egyptian transplant tourism issue. The big difference between Egypt, Pakistan and China is that in China this is veiled in secrecy but in Egypt and Pakistan the cases have been uncovered, reported in the press and people have been arrested. Many of surgeons and physicians have been put in jail in Egypt but in China organ harvesting is veiled in secrecy, the media is suppressed and so it is difficult to know what is going on there.