Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The issue I want to raise was brought to my attention by a woman who lives in my constituency. Her name, which she has given me permission to use, is Nicola McKenna. I met Nicola when I was out canvassing and we had a chat. Although she is very unassuming about it, Nicola is quite an amazing person. She donated a kidney to one of her siblings so she is a living donor. It is such a wonderful thing to do. We have all been inspired by following Orla Tinsley on social media and while I know Ms Tinsley's situation is not exactly the same, to be able to donate a kidney to a sibling, a relative or a friend is a marvellous thing to do.

I am aware of the way the scheme operates as I previously asked a parliamentary question on it.

The reply reads:

The Policy for the Reimbursement of Expenses of Living Donors provides for the reimbursement of accommodation and travel expenses ... up to a maximum of €6,000. In addition, the scheme reimburses loss of earnings incurred by salaried/waged donors ... for up to 12 weeks after the donation, up to a maximum of €10,000.

The final part of the reply was the most disappointing. It states, "There are no plans to further alter the scheme."

Nicola does not work outside the home. She works incredibly hard looking after her children but she is not in formal paid employment. Therefore, she cannot benefit from this scheme, which reimburses the loss of earnings incurred by salaried or waged donors. She incurred significant expenses. People who work in the home do work even if it might not be in the formal economy. She was not able to do that work, but it still had to be done and her children still had to be cared for. As such, she incurred additional expenses while recuperating after doing what was a marvellous thing, yet she is not covered by the scheme.

I genuinely believe that this is an oversight. Given that the numbers involved are small, no one in the Department of Health or any other Department would deliberately seek to exclude these people. They simply fell through the net. Excluding people who do not work outside the home is unfair. We should be encouraging people to become living donors. I would encourage anyone to do it. I have only one sister but I would like to think that, if the situation required it, we would do that for each other. Touch wood, we will not need to.

This small anomaly is not the Department's intention but it needs to be rectified. When I raised it previously, I was disappointed with the response to my parliamentary question, given what the bottom part read. I am calling for a very minor alteration of the scheme in light of the fact that we are only discussing a small subset of an already small number of living donors. Consideration should be given to this.

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