Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Under the Bill, I am putting forward, for consideration by Government in the near future, all the policy and legal issues, including best practice for coroners, involved. Under the Infectious Diseases (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2003, as soon as a medical practitioner becomes aware of or suspects that a person on whom he or she is in professional attendance is suffering from or is the carrier of a notifiable infectious disease or a clinical director of a diagnostic laboratory becomes aware that an infectious disease has been identified in that laboratory, he or she is required to transmit an electronic notification to a medical officer of health. Therefore, a provision of this kind exists. I do not think a notifiable disease will come to light in the course of a coroner's inquest if it had escaped the attention of everybody who had dealt with the death during the inquest.

I accept the Senator's point that MRSA is very serious and that we should have proper statistics in respect of it. Where deaths occur as a result of it, they should be properly recorded. I am not sure whether MRSA is a notifiable disease.