Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I raise the recent changes in the blood donation policies. As the Acting Leader may know, the new four-month deferral policy is now in effect but it seems that, contrary to assurances from the Irish Blood Transfusion Service during a Newstalk interview on 22 December of last year, the service has suddenly decided to continue to include oral sex between men as grounds for deferral. Women who have had sex with bisexual men will also continue to be deferred for four months instead of the previous 12 but again, the man in this scenario may be free to donate during that period while the woman is prevented from doing so. No explanation has really been given for these and saying it aloud it all seems a little topsy-turvy and does not follow logical sense.

Due to a freedom of information request from a member of the public, my understanding is the initial plan was to move to a three-month deferral for gay and bisexual men. However, during one of the meetings, one of the attendees suggested a four-month deferral and it seems this was just accepted. No scientific or other kind of basis for this suggestion was given during the meeting, beyond simply that France was implementing a four-month deferral at the time. In the meantime, Ireland was importing blood from England despite the latter never having a four-month deferral. It has instead moved from 12 months to three months and is now at an individualised assessment for all donors. It seems this four-month period was plucked out of thin air to mimic France and even France has moved away from it. It seems every piece of evidence shows this new deferral policy has zero basis in science or medicine and is instead purely ideological. That is no way to run a national blood service, especially when the scientific alternative, namely, individualised risk assessment for all donors, is available and easily implementable. It is in use in Northern Ireland and Britain, from which we are currently importing blood. They do not have this deferral system.

This is not the first time the issue of blood donation has been raised in the House. It is not good enough we are running our blood donation service based not on scientific reasoning but instead on a seemingly ideological basis. I wanted to raise it in the House because doing the above is not good enough. Blood is a vital service. It literally saves lives. Our blood service still seems to be using this unscientific method despite assurances year after year and I believed, from the programme for Government, that this was going to change.