Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairperson and the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, for coming to the Chamber today and for his interventions in the Minister's speech. The bizarre nature of the response would probably be okay if this was the first time that the Department and its officials had ever had any sight of this. I spent a privileged four years in the Department and there are very large files of meetings we have had, not just with Martin and Caroline Smith but with all of the officials who attempted to do this, so this is not a new issue.

Addressing the specific issues outlined by the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, that there is no mention of the voluntary nature of the registration in the Bill; in section 2(2) the Bill states that the “Certificates issued [will be] pursuant to a scheme ... where so requested”. It is entirely incumbent, therefore, upon the mother, the father or the people who suffered the loss to apply to the GRO for their certificate. This is a completely voluntary and non-statutory process and does not ever expect to infer any other statutory rights.

The reason that this is an amendment to the Civil Registration Act and that the medical practitioner is required to certify it is because that is what happens when we lose babies. We go to the hospital because we want to try to save the baby and the loss to my mind, whether it is prior to 24-weeks or after that period, is part of the register of that hospital, so a medical practitioner after 24 weeks certifies that a baby was born and that a baby had died. All we are asking for is the equivalent medical certificate for a baby that does not reach the WHO certification standards.

This is not something that is new and we are not trying to create something to be awkward here. We want the medical practitioners at the time of the loss to register the baby's loss and then for the GRO, in exactly the same way as they do with the stillbirth register, if the parents wish to apply for the non-statutory certificate of life or loss - whichever way we want to term it - that such an application will suffice the GRO to give them the records.

I am not trying to be smart, and particularly not to the Minister of State, but this is not rocket science. What this does is acknowledge the 15,000 babies who are lost each and every year, and the lives lived in the first hours of the duration after pregnancy tests and that are lost, together with the years of grief that have been interrupted for so many families. If there is a will, and there certainly is in this House from the contributions that the Minister of State has heard today, and there certainly is also from the activists, both parents and representative bodies, to ensure that the State does not stand in its own way or in the way of parents of citizens of this State any longer, then we will find a way.I will work with the officials and if there are amendments that need to be brought before Committee Stage we will do that but we will see the passage of this Bill through to its end. I respectfully ask the Minister of State to bring back the message to the Minister that when we do, we expect her to bring it though the Dáil for us.