Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the lead-up to the Minister, Deputy Reilly, signing the law, he had no draft of his own version of the transposition to show the national organ donors group for debate. At a briefing held in April 2012 in Dublin Castle, no draft was available for the group to review. In May 2012, the Irish Donor Network asked the Minister to present his draft legislation to it for review before signing it into law. The Irish Kidney Association asked the Minister to forward it a draft. Senator Mark Daly wrote to the Minister in July 2012 asking for a draft proposal for Irish law to be sent out for review and consultation. No draft was available.

No one saw a draft before it was signed into law. In August 2012, before the law was signed, the Irish Kidney Association wrote to the Minister encouraging the model of one competent authority, which has been adopted by other countries in the European Union with success, to be the main infrastructure in Ireland as well as part of the Minister's drafting. I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Alex White, will announce that there will be one group established within that framework and which was included in the recommendations.

There were 164 directives signed into law in the past year without any debate. These were statutory instruments signed by Ministers. This was never envisaged in the 1972 Act. This House is the one that should be scrutinising legislation. One message that should come from this House today is that it is ready, willing and able to carry out the responsibilities under the Lisbon treaty and it alone deserves to be in that position. The Government should respond to that. The Leader of the House himself has said this on numerous occasions, as has the former Minister of State, Deputy Creighton.