Dáil debates

Tuesday, 19 October 2021

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Legislative Measures

10:35 pm

Photo of Joe O'BrienJoe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I join with Deputy Cairns and other Deputies in reflecting on the enormous losses of parents as part of this month's marking of pregnancy and infant loss. I do not think anyone in this House will disagree when I say that a stillbirth must be one of the most traumatic events that parents can experience. My own experience of engaging with parents is that the loss can be overwhelming, long-lasting and, importantly, very difficult to reconcile.

When legislation to establish a stillbirth register was enacted over 25 years ago, this State was 30 years behind Northern Ireland and 40 years behind England and Wales in giving formal State recognition to a stillborn child. The Minister of the day, the late Mervyn Taylor, when introducing the Bill in 1994, outlined his approach to the long-awaited legislation. He explained that his approach was determined by two considerations. The first was to recognise the therapeutic effect that registration might deliver for grieving parents. The second was to create a permanent record akin to the register of births within the civil registration system. While acknowledging the points the Deputy has made in terms of how our understanding has come a long way since then, these two considerations remain as valid today as when the legislation was first enacted.

The recently published eighth report of the national clinical audit on perinatal mortality in Ireland, conducted by the National Perinatal Epidemiology Centre in Cork, provides essential insights into the incidence of stillbirths and perinatal deaths. The centre has the aim of identifying quality improvement initiatives and proposing recommendations for the improvement of care for mothers and babies in Ireland. All 19 Irish maternity units reported anonymised data to the centre. The report details that some 325 deaths occurred in 61,298 births occurring during 2018.

Stillbirths and early neonatal deaths accounted for 270 and 108, respectively, of those 325 deaths. In 2019, 360 deaths arising from 59,574 births were reported, of which stillbirths and early neonatal deaths accounted for 242 and 118, respectively, of the total.

The General Register Office, GRO, is notified of all births that occur. It reports similar data to those I have indicated, stating that between 300 and 350 families are affected each year by loss due to stillbirth and early neonatal deaths. The GRO also observes that due to the voluntary nature of the stillbirth registration process, approximately half of parents select to register the event, perhaps reflecting, in part, the huge loss suffered by parents and their wider family. I encourage parents to register their loss. The stillbirths register can provide a tangible record and acknowledgement of stillborn children. As well as serving as a focus for the memories of bereaved parents, it also has the strength of providing familial linkages for future generations, but only if the records can be accessed.

In her contribution to this debate, Deputy Cairns has conveyed the proposals advanced by advocacy groups that seek legislative change to open the stillbirths register to public access in a way that is similar to the birth, marriage and death registers. The Civil Registration Act 2004 provides that no person other than the Registrar General or a member of staff of the GRO is authorised to search the stillbirths register. The GRO provides whatever assistance it can to enable searches. There are restrictions on providing copies of the information held in the form of a certificate to anyone other than a parent. My colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, has indicated that she is willing to reassess these restrictions as they are set out in the Act. Given the sensitivities involved, she has stated that we may not go as far as providing full public access, as in the case of the birth register, but that other, less limiting, forms of access may be considered. We should recognise, too, the parents who, for their own reasons, choose not to register.

This discussion is timely given that we are in the month of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I welcome the Minister's commitment to open a dialogue on how we can better manage the system of registration. She has asked the GRO to examine the policy and legislative implications involved in making the stillbirths register more open and whether it should be fully open, as with other public registers, as proposed.

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