Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

I welcome and support the legislation. I thank the Minister of State and his staff for all the work they did and I appreciate his listening to the issues I raised and his assurance that he will give them further consideration. Obviously, I appreciate that some of the amendments I tabled were addressed by the Minister of State in Government amendments.

On a general point, while supporting the legislation, I want to pick up on the remoter parties issue. My main reason for tabling the relevant amendments was that, despite people's rights per se, those remoter parties, which could include a parent without custody, a legal guardian or a grandparent, might have something to contribute to the process which could help and perhaps even save the State money in the long term. If some such party could volunteer to play a greater role in the child's welfare, that would obviously be good from the State's viewpoint. It could be good too for the child and is something that should be taken into account. That was one of the motivating factors for my amendments.

This needs to be examined much more. Instead of saying the HSE might be caused greater inconvenience, we should ask whether such an initiative would help it more, broaden its outlook and help it make a better decision.