Mr. Mark Murphy:

Having an emergency department is not sufficient. The hospital needs to have a bed available in the intensive care unit. I will offer a good example which involves hospitals not too far from the Senator's constituency. The worst year for organ donations was 2010, when there were 58 donors. In that year Bantry hospital had three organ donors, while Cork University Hospital, CUH, had one. Bantry hospital is now incapable of managing an organ donor because it no longer has an intensive care bed. There are differences and quirks. The quirk in CUH has not been repeated. It had never previoulsy had fewer than eight organ donors, but in that year it had one. I went ballistic when it became obvious. The hospital has not had such a low figure since. It was astonishing that a small hospital in Bantry had three donors, while CUH, the second biggest head trauma hospital in the country, had one. It comes down to the individuals working in the intensive care units of hospitals and it is not somehting that will be changed by legislation. The infrastructure must change in order for donation rates to increase.