Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and I thank my colleague and friend, Senator David Norris, for sticking with this and pursuing it. I remember a great debate about this in the Seanad with a previous Minister a year or two ago. Of course there were great promises that it would come back and there would be a focus on it. I thank the Senator Norris for sticking with it and using the Independent Senators' Private Members' slot today. I was happy to co-sign the proposal, as was my colleague, Senator Craughwell. It is an important Bill and I look forward to hearing what the Minister will tell us.

In 2018, the Scally report recommended the establishment of a national screening committee as an independent expert advisory committee with responsibility for considering population screening programmes in Ireland against international accepted criteria.I wish to touch on two or three issues in respect of sections 2, 4 and 5 of the Bill and the Schedule so I will concentrate my comments on those elements of the Bill.

Section 2 deals with the establishment of the national screening advisory committee. Subsection (1) establishes the committee on a statutory footing, which is exceptionally important.

Section 4 is titled "Conferral of additional functions". This is a standard provision that allows the Minister for Health to draft an order, which must be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas, conferring the NSAC with additional functions it may need to perform effectively. Senator Norris has referred to that. It is worthy of note and comment.

Section 5, "Reports of Advisory Committee", specifically subsection (1), requires that the national screening advisory committee report and make recommendations to the Minister for Health on the expansion and the conditions tested for and by the national newborn blood spot screening programme within six months of the Bill being enacted. The Minister must also cause copies of the report to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. Again, Senator Norris referred to that in his introduction.

A number of things struck me about the Schedule, which deals with procedural issues relating to the advisory committee. The Schedule provides for a patient advocacy member of the committee. It is important that there would be a patient advocate member of the committee if it were established. The Schedule also requires that there be gender balance on the committee. That is an important point that sometimes gets lost in all these things. The Schedule also provides for details of the resignation or, for that matter, the removal from office of the committee. Perhaps issues may arise such that people should be removed from office, disqualified, etc., from the national screening advisory committee. That is an important provision in the Bill because it is something we do not always envisage when we set out to establish committees or when we run into difficulties. It is important we have that mechanism in place, and that is dealt with in the Schedule. The Schedule also requires members to disclose interests in any material matter to be considered by the committee and provides that the Minister may, if he or she deems fit, disqualify members of the committee for failing to disclose such interests. That is important. The Schedule also prohibits the unauthorised disclosure - this is a really important consideration - of confidential information obtained by a person in any capacity who engages with the committee and makes it a criminal offence to do so. The Schedule also obliges the chairperson of the committee to appear before Oireachtas committees whenever requested to do so.

This is a very reasonable, pragmatic, common-sense Bill and I would like to hear the Minister's thoughts on it. Again, I commend Senator Norris on pursuing it. Anything he does he sticks with it. He has stuck with this issue, and I look forward to a favourable response from the Minister to the Bill.