Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I express my deepest sympathies to the families involved who, having experienced the tragedy of losing a beloved child or loved one, have that grief compounded by the wrong and inappropriate disposal of organs. It is unacceptable and very distressing for the families concerned. In many respects, it is incomprehensible given that there was a major inquiry nearly 20 years ago which covered every single hospital in the country in terms of post-mortem practice. Guidelines were established.

It is difficult to comprehend that hospitals are still, albeit not the same scale as prior to that inquiry, nonetheless engaging in practices such as incineration or retaining organs beyond the timelines that they are required to retain organs and that in certain instances, again, there was no proper consultation or engagement with parents or family members. This is unacceptable. The HSE did the audit. At least I take something from that in that it did a robust audit and has revealed the latest incidence with regard to hospitals in Limerick, Drogheda and elsewhere. That should be published without delay.

On the review in Cork, the need of the family for transparency should be absolutely prioritised by the HSE. I understand the review team is currently engaging legal opinion on the draft report before sending it to participants, in accordance with factual accuracy checking and fair procedures, and I am told the final draft will be shared with the families for input on factual accuracy checking and so on. That needs to be accelerated because much grief and stress has been caused to the parents in Cork University Maternity Hospital case. This should not be happening in today's world. Arising out of the audit, a variety of work is under way on the national women's and infants' health programme. It is leading a review of the provision of perinatal pathology services. A post mortem examination services group has been established to review and update the current standards by December 2022 and a project group has been established to monitor the implementation of this audit's recommendations.

The human tissue Bill needs to be published. I spoke to the Minister this morning and I have spoken to the Attorney General. I made it clear I want that legislation published in September. There are complexities applying to this legislation but the general scheme was published a number of years ago. It has been ongoing now for a long time. There are implications for transplantation because of significant new policies in respect of facilitating the retrieval of organs in respect of transplants and we want that to be a positive dimension to this. That said, the Bill must be published and needs to be debated in this House. We need, with the co-operation of all Members of this House, to get that Bill enacted. That is a commitment I am making. I spoke to the Minister for Health this morning and I have spoken to the Attorney General as well about it being all hands on deck now to get this done once and for all.

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