Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputies Donnelly and Tom Fleming, with the agreement of the House.

I commend Deputy Tom Fleming for tabling this motion for debate, which is very worthwhile and timely. This is something to which we must commit ourselves wholeheartedly. We must commit to changing the system we have for organ donation. I welcome the Government's commitment to initiate a consultation process and I hope that it will commence and conclude sooner rather than later. We must change the system of organ donation with the aim of having an enormously positive impact on people's lives.

The current situation in Ireland is that if one wishes to become an organ donor after one's death, one needs to inform one's next of kin of that intention. Consent is never presumed and even if a donor card has been signed, the next of kin will always be asked for consent for the organs to be donated. If the next of kin refuses that consent, even though the donor card has been signed, the donation does not take place. It is very difficult for the next of kin, who may be in a very traumatic situation, to have to make decisions like that when they are consumed with thoughts of the loss of their loved one. They should not be put in that position and asked to make those decisions at such a difficult time.

Several Deputies made reference to the opt-in or presumed consent system and asked whether it would be viable and would work here. In that context, we must look to the Spanish experience. In 1999, the Spanish introduced a presumed consent system but it did not increase the organ donation rates and did not have the desired outcome. They then realised that they needed a system of informed rather than presumed consent, so that people at all stages of their lives, be they children in school or adults at work, could be informed constantly of the benefits of organ donation. In that way, people became very aware of what the process involved, the benefits to be achieved and they then gave their informed consent. That appears to have worked and to have significantly increased the organ donation rates in Spain, leading to the improvement of so many lives.

During the consultation process we must explain the process fully and explore how informed consent could work in practice. If we do decide to change the consent system and work towards an automatic opt-in system, we must continue with the education process on a constant and well-funded basis. The education programme must work all year round, every year so that we can improve donation rates here.

There are currently 650 patients awaiting transplantation around the country and one deceased donor can potentially help nine other people and have an enormous impact on many lives. We must recognise the value of that and develop a system to greatly enhance and improve it.

One of the hard facts of increased transplantation is that it assists the Exchequer. Figures were given out last night indicating that a patient on dialysis who receives a kidney transplant saves the Exchequer in the region of €750,000, which is not insignificant and may be a hard fact to be considered by the bean counters. Perhaps it will make this policy change possible if they can see those benefits.

This has been a very worthwhile debate and we will also look forward to and will participate in the consultation process that is commencing. We will be looking to see how the issue changes. I pay tribute to Mr. Joe Brolly and his selfless act in being a live donor of a kidney to somebody he did not know all that well. He tried to help that person but unfortunately it did not work out. That kind of act has put this issue front and centre, making us all focus on the donation system and the need for developing informed consent. It is a great tribute to Mr. Brolly, and I know many other live donors in the country who may not have the same profile. His action has raised the profile of this issue. We must have informed consent and I look forward to the start of the consultation process and the change it could bring.

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