Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I do not think anyone knows what is the right thing to do here. I know the committee discussed it at length and we discussed it on Committee Stage. I had a very useful discussion on this recently with the Irish Kidney Association as well. As we are all aware, it would like to see an opt-in as well as an opt-out register. What I am proposing to do is to stick with the opt-out register, the reason being that we want real clarity here. We will have very significant public communications on this as well so that people in the country know what we are doing and that essentially we will all now be signed up as organ donors unless somebody wants to opt out. I very much respect where the Irish Kidney Association is coming from. It has a lot of expertise in this and it is its view that it would like both. I told the Irish Kidney Association that we would stick with the current approach, which is an opt-out system. However we want to make sure we get this right, hence the review clause. As for Deputy Shortall's question, absolutely, we can look at how it has worked. We can look at whether, given several years of operation, it would be better to have an opt-in. I do not think we should ever rule out having both. We need to be very respectful of where the Irish Kidney Association is coming from, its expertise, and the lived experience of its members. We spoke about Spain, for example, which is referenced as one of the best. Spain does not have an opt-in system. Other countries do. Yes, we need to keep it under review and it will form active consideration within the review we are bringing in now.

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