Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the Minister of State, Deputy White, back to the House. I am always pleased to see a former colleague in the House in his rightful place as a Minister of State representing the Government and I hope to see it recurring for many years to come. However, I wonder where his senior colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, is today. Surely he could have taken a day's leave and come before the House for this important matter. Anyway, that is not for the Minister of State to answer.

Certainly, I would not be part of any political stunt. If I thought for one moment that Senator Daly was trying to pull a political stunt I would not have signed his request for the Seanad to be reconvened and I imagine none of my colleagues in Fianna Fáil or my other colleagues in the House would have signed the request if they thought it was a political stunt either. I signed it because I believe it is a genuine and serious matter. Furthermore, I have no doubt that my colleague, Senator Daly, is genuine and serious about this matter. He has been attempting for almost 12 months to have this debated. I bow to the words of my colleague, the eminent lawyer, Senator O'Donovan, who said that this was the only opportunity available to Senator Daly and his colleagues to have this legislation and the EU directive debated and, hopefully, rescinded.

Senator Daly is a colleague of mine but he is also a political opponent. Nevertheless, I will defend his right to raise any matter under the Constitution that could potentially save the lives of 650 people now and thousands of people in future. We have no difficulty with the EU directive signed into law by the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, towards the end of August last year. However, as other colleagues have eloquently outlined to the House, it is the bare minimum that was required under the directive. We have serious reservations in respect of several issues he did not include. These include, primarily, why there is no national transplantation office in the country, why the Minister for Health chose to divide the responsibility between the HSE and the Irish Medicines Board and why there are no organ donation co-ordinators placed in the major trauma centres in the country. I gather the number of organ donations could increase by more than 50% if these two simple matters were implemented. I understand that in Northern Ireland, which is small geographically and population-wise, there are 26 such co-ordinators and that it has seen an increase of 50% in organ transplant donations.

Another issue highlighted by the recall of the Seanad relates to all the legislation that is debated in the Oireachtas. We hear a good deal about political reform, which, according to the Government, means getting rid of town councils, reducing the number of county councillors in rural Ireland and moving them to the east coast and getting rid of this House. For every tranche of legislation debated in the Houses of the Oireachtas three further tranches of legislation are signed into law without even being looked at. That is a reality and it has been highlighted today.

I welcome the fact that the Government has entered into public consultation on the introduction of an opt-out system of consent for organ donation and I welcome the fact that a consultation process is under way. However, were it not for this debate I would not even know about that and I am a legislator.

A cousin of mine was the recipient of a kidney transplant 15 years ago as a young man. He has since married and has five beautiful sons. Only for the generosity of his donor and others like him it would not have been possible. I commend and compliment the Irish Kidney Association on the work it carries out. If we can increase the number of donations as a result of this debate today by one or two, then, as some colleagues have said, we will have done a good day's work. I commend all my colleagues who signed the recall petition and in particular I commend Senator Daly on the work he has done in this regard.