Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 12:

In page 44, to delete lines 30 to 34 and substitute the following:

“(a) an appropriate medical specialist has stated in the specified form that such child is due to undergo medical treatment which, in the opinion of the specialist—

(i) is likely to cause a significant and irreversible impairment to the child’s fertility, and

(ii) such storage is in the child’s best interests, including, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, in respect of having objectively, and in all the circumstances of the case, a reasonable expectation of the child being in a position to use the relevant storage (G) or the relevant storage (T), as the case may be, after the child attains the age of 18 years,”.

These two amendments to section 39 are put forward on foot of recommendations from the HSE in relation to the issue of children being provided with AHR treatment for the purposes of fertility preservation. We had a very useful discussion on this on Committee Stage. The first strong recommendation was that it should be an appropriate specialist rather than a registered medical practitioner who decides whether a child should be provided AHR treatment given the clinical importance of that decision, as already discussed in relation to amendment No. 2. This facilitates a broader number of specialties which can provide that very specialist advice.

The second recommendation was related to the removal of a reference to the term “progressive disease”, as the HSE considered it would be more appropriate and safer for this type of fertility preservation to be related solely to the type of medical treatment that a child may be facing as distinct from being based on a disease itself.

The third recommendation, which is reflected in this amendment is the addition of the word “irreversible” in the context of the likely impairment to a child’s fertility. The HSE points out that there are medical treatments which impact on fertility at the point of treatment but after which fertility can be recovered, so it considers it is important that this distinction is captured in the Bill.

The fourth and final recommendation reflected within these two amendments is the addition of a specific criteria to be taken into account when deciding whether the retrieval and storage of the child’s gametes or tissues is in his or her best interests. The new criteria would require the specialist concerned to have a reasonable expectation of the child being in a position as regards the health and capacity to use stored material upon reaching adulthood. In the context of the proposed forthcoming amending Bill further consideration will be given to issues around the position of the consent of the child to storage once they become an adult and their ability to revoke such consent at that stage according to their own wishes.

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