Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am also delighted to see school children in the Seanad today.

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, for coming to the House to deal with this matter. As he knows, there is a real crisis in blood stocks in our health service and there has been throughout the pandemic. Ireland has had to import blood stocks on three separate occasions over the past 12 months from the NHS blood transfusion service in the UK. It has been reported that blood supplies are so low that the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, IBTS, may have to trigger an amber alert. This is having a negative impact on planned surgeries and hospital activity. The Irish hospital system has enough problems at the moment dealing with reduced capacity because of the need to isolate patients due to Covid-19. A scarcity of blood products is the last thing it needs. As of last night, there was only a five-day supply of O negative blood in stock and last week there was only a two-day supply. As someone whose dad was a very diligent and proud donator of blood because he had a rare blood type, I must say that news of these shortages is terrifying. Indeed, it is terrifying for anyone who takes blood donation seriously. It is in that context that I am asking about the policy changes that were instigated this week by the IBTS.

In the first instance, I am very heartened that there has been a change in eligibility. It is important to say that in the past, gay and bisexual men who had sex with other men were banned for life from donating. That was changed in 2017. At that time, a wait period of 12 months was introduced before gay or bisexual men could donate blood. As of Monday of this week, that wait period has been reduced to four months. Given that we have such huge shortages in blood donations, what is the Department doing to advertise this? It is crazy that there seems to have been no active attempt to get the word out there. There is, of course, a wider issue around encouraging young people and people of all ages up to a certain point, to donate blood. The pandemic contributed greatly to a fall-off in the number of blood donors. Given this fact and the recent changes to eligibility, we need to see the Department advertising more.

While I very much welcome the aforementioned changes, I am concerned about the scientific basis for some of them. While neither I nor anyone else in this House has the scientific knowledge to be able to question the specific scientific evidence that was provided by the social behaviours review group within the IBTS, it is important that its advice is published. Concern has been expressed that some of the ideas and philosophical, scientific and health biases that were at work and which underpinned the ban on donation for many years are still at play. The question must be asked about the basis for the four-month wait period, given that the UK has moved to a three-month wait period. Why is it that a woman who has sex with a bisexual man is made to wait four months but that same bisexual man may be able to donate immediately if he had sex with a man more than four months ago? I must apologise to the children and the teacher in the Public Gallery but these are important matters. What is the basis for the type of sex as grounds for the wait period? There have been conflicting reports around public statements made last December with regard to oral sex and so on.

The fundamental issue is that there appears to be inconsistencies here. We are happy to import blood from Britain that is subject to rules that are different to the rules in operation here. Will the Minister for Health publish the advice of the social behaviours review group to inform us of the basis for the decisions of the IBTS?