Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Most people will agree there is very little that is more traumatic than for a parent to lose a child. There is something very particular about the loss of a child through stillbirth or at the very early stages of infancy. We would all know, either through family members or friends, people who have had to go through that devastating experience. I was struck by somebody who once told me that the only people who could ever fully appreciate that particular type of pain are people who have gone through it themselves, parents who have found themselves in that situation. It is a particularly lonely loss because nobody else, other than the parents, knew the child or the baby. Therefore, it is impossible to imagine a scenario where parents have to go through that pain, have to try to come to terms with and manage their grief and who subsequently learn their baby's organs were shipped abroad with medical waste for incineration. I do not think anybody could expect parents to deal with that in an ordinary manner, for want of a better word. In that context, it is very important to reiterate our appreciation and esteem for the families who have told their stories this week in respect of what happened in Cork.

I welcome the fact a review is taking place and I encourage the Minister to ensure that it is timeframed so that we get the answers that are required as quickly as possible. Those answers must be comprehensive because, as others have said, potentially hundreds of parents are asking themselves whether the same thing happened to the organs of their baby and they need to be given assurances. I wish to quote from an article I read on the RTÉ website when this story broke. This is crucially important because there is no party politics to be played here but there are political questions that must be asked. The relevant segment reads as follows:

In mid-May 2020, hospital management sent an incident report on the incinerations to the Department of Health. However, management did not rate the incident as serious but did express concern about the adverse publicity for the hospital if it came to public attention.

That is absolutely scandalous. Even when management recognised that there could be an issue, they saw it in terms of public relations as opposed to what it might mean for the families involved and for the dozens if not hundreds of other families who might have concerns about it.

As well as the review, there also needs to be something that is almost unique in Irish public life, namely, accountability. Somebody needs to be held to account for the series of events that led to very serious, well-paid individuals coming to an agreement - this was not an accident - that children's body parts would be shipped off with medical waste for incineration. Will somebody, either a body or an individual, be held accountable for what has happened?

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