Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney, and Senator Quinn's Bill. Like Senator O'Toole, I compliment Senator Quinn on his initiative in drawing attention to this very important issue. As he said, it is all about saving and maintaining lives. It is a very complex issue when one gets down to it because it involves emotion, sensitivity and the legal aspect, not to mention medical politics.

When preparing for the debate, I remembered coming into the House six years ago as a novice Senator to speak on stem cell research. I have been paying the price for that for six years. I was obviously on a side on which there were not too many other people. Perhaps I was a little bit liberal; I was certainly innocent. I feel much safer speaking on this Bill because I do not believe the big sticks will be out there to beat me.

The Government, through the Minister for Health and Children, is in the process of preparing a Bill to come before both Houses which will deal with all the issues Senator Quinn raised as well as other issues. It will cover the regulation of the removal, retention, storage, use and disposal of human tissue from deceased persons and consent for the use of donated tissues from living persons for the purpose of transplantation and research.

The Bill will also look at the options Senator Quinn outlined, namely, opt in, opt out and mandatory choice. The Minister has met many interested groups but she must put the issue into the public domain for intense public consultation and debate. Part of the editorial in today's edition of The Irish Times supports what Senator Quinn proposed while one of the letters to the editor almost questions whether this is the right way to go. There are different views and it is right that the Minister engages in a consultation process and listens to the debate. Senator O'Toole, more or less, said the same to the Minister of State.

I will not go through all of what I have written because much of it is jargon covering what the Government proposes to introduce in its legislation and the Minister of State will deal with that. It is very important to bring a human aspect to such a debate. If one can humanise an issue such as this, one surpasses politics. I am very close to where Senator Quinn is coming from and agree with him that it is all about maintaining and saving lives.

Approximately four years ago, through politics, I was involved in a very sad case of a young woman in her early 40s who came from a very troubled background and who had attempted self-harm on two occasions. She attempted it on a third occasion by taking paracetamol with whiskey. She was a young professional woman, an accountant, and although she had come from a very troubled background, she was very bright and intelligent and had put herself through college. She turned out to be a wonderful young professional woman. She was admitted to a Dublin hospital and it was discovered her liver was severely damaged. Her family was called in — it was at this stage I was invited to become involved — and told that because she had self-harmed, she would not be looked on as an ideal candidate for a liver transplant. She was 42 years of age and was on her death bed pleading that she wanted to live. She was put on the waiting list, but did not live long enough to be called.

It is important these stories are told. There is a belief among the medical profession, probably because organs are so few and precious, that there must be criteria with regard to who will or will not receive a donated organ. However, it is difficult to watch a young woman lying in a bed with her family around her. The family of that young woman is still traumatised four years on and I am sure their pain will be as real in 44 years' time.

Like Senator Quinn, I have a story to tell about organ donation. My brother-in-law in the US had a liver transplant 14 months ago. He was the father of three young children from seven years of age down to two years of age and was at death's door. The whole family was so anxious that I inquired in Dublin whether a transplant could be done any quicker if he returned to Ireland, but in the middle of the night he got the phone call and he got to a hospital. Now, 14 months later he is doing remarkably well. He was home in Ireland during the summer and it was great to see him playing football with his young children again.

My brother-in-law's story was broadcast in the US as part of a breakfast TV programme because the mother of the young male donor, who was involved in a road traffic accident, wanted to meet the recipients of her son's organs. Just as in the story told by Senator Quinn, the two families have come together and send birthday and Christmas cards to each other, although they come from very different backgrounds. There is great love and affection between them. There is gratitude on the part of the recipient for his extended life and joy in the donor family because they have contributed to saving lives by donating their son's organs.

I urge Senator Quinn to keep this valuable Bill on the agenda, but to wait and see what may be introduced by the Minister for Health. We are close on the issue and may find common ground, as happened previously on another Bill with which Senator Quinn was involved. I thank him for bringing his important Bill before us.