Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today and this week mark baby loss awareness week and it is now in its 20th year. It is a wonderful opportunity to bring people together as a community in a safe and supportive space to support anybody who has been touched by pregnancy and baby loss and to allow people to share their experiences, feel connected and share each others' grief. It is probably a little known fact that one in four pregnancies in Ireland results in the loss of a baby. It is a devastating loss to parents and to the family, and anybody who knows that loss knows it only too well. A collaboration of charities and agencies across Ireland, through baby loss awareness week, try to raise the awareness of key issues affecting those people and families who experience pregnancy loss and baby loss.

One of the really severe issues that exists in Ireland is that the State does not recognise the existence of a large number of the babies who are lost during pregnancy. Two people who have become good friends of mine and have worked tirelessly over recent years, Caroline and Martin Smith, are in the House today and I thank the Cathaoirleach for welcoming them. They genuinely have worked tirelessly to address the issue that has hurt them and so many other families like them over the years, that is, the State refusing to recognise their loss and the member of their family who is much loved, their son Stephen. Stephen was born seven years ago next week. He was 420 g at birth and Caroline was 20 weeks and two days pregnant. Despite Caroline giving birth to Stephen, the State does not see him as ever having existed because he did not reach the milestones as set down in the stillbirth definition by the WHO. There are many families like Caroline and Martin and many little babies like Stephen. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to live with the grief of loss when your own State does not even recognise that your much-loved baby, from the first hiccup to today, ever even existed.

Today, I am seeking leave to amend the Order of Business to introduce, with my colleague Senator Seery Kearney, a Bill called the Civil Registration (Amendment) (Certificate of Life) Bill. It is on behalf of Martin and Caroline and their son Stephen and all the other Stephens in Ireland that I do this. I want the State to establish a non-statutory register that allows these births, these lives and these losses to be recognised by the State in order that families can grief, move on, and live with the devastating loss without the obstruction of the State not recognising the citizen who is and was and has passed.