Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)

I thank my colleague, Deputy Broughan, for raising this issue. I take the response of the Minister of State on board, namely, that the Government cannot support the Bill. I support the substantive issues proposed in it. I am delighted the Minister of State said the issues will be taken on board.

As everybody knows, this is an emotive issue. I am from a rural constituency where anyone who wants to be cremated has to drive to Dublin. I would like that situation to change. As Deputy Humphreys said, the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. Death is something we will all have to deal with at one time or another. I thank Deputy Broughan for his hard work. The Bill has revealed that there are difficulties in this country with regard to funerals, burials, cremations and afterlife care.

I was quite amazed to find this area is not on a statutory footing. Local authorities have responsibility for graveyards and graveyard maintenance. We have come a long way from a situation where benevolent farmers gave fields to villages to be used as burial plots. I was quite surprised to find there are currently no barriers to entry and no licensing of an industry responsible for the burial and cremation of up to 30,000 people a year.

I did not think Deputy Broughan advocated a move away from local authorities, but perhaps he can clarify that in his summation. There are up to 600 funeral directors in Ireland, of which fewer than 100 operate full time. Many operate other businesses. People who were interviewed by the forum quote problems like funeral directors not having enough staff and incidents of neglect, misconduct and, perhaps more worryingly, unqualified people carrying out specific technical and important duties like embalming.

The varying degrees in standards in practice and facilities tend to have a negative impact on grieving families as their needs are not met. At a time such as the passing of a loved one it is simply not good enough to have below par services which cost a substantial amount of money. There was also evidence of invoices which had no itemisations outlined on them and ambiguous invoices being issued. There were reports of hospital and mortuary staff being petitioned by funeral companies to encourage business.

While historically it has not been a very popular choice, there has been an increase in those seeking cremation as an end of life option. There does not seem to be any regulation of the area. As Deputy Broughan pointed out, if somebody can obtain planning permission he or she can open a crematorium. I talked to some local authority staff to find out their policy on cremation, burial grounds and how we will deal with this situation in the future. They said they did not have a policy and they were unsure if it was a planning matter. They felt it was more of an environmental matter.

It is a matter for planning and environment departments. Local authorities did not think there was such criteria and said they did not have a defined policy on this issue because there was no national policy. Perhaps it is time that we decided on a national policy. I was startled to find that previous Governments had a lack of policy on this issue. Local authorities have environmental SPCs.

Perhaps the Government and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government could send a directive to local authorities to instruct them that this is another area for which we need to devise a policy so we can proceed with clarity in future. I support the substantive issues raised in the Bill and I congratulate Deputy Broughan.

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