Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)

I will bring up something I brought up last week and on which I had a Commencement matter yesterday. It is about donating blood. A colleague who is sitting here in the Chamber came up to me yesterday to tell me that, because of what I said, they have registered to donate blood. I really appreciate that. Another two people also said that to me. If today means I could get another three people to do so, I am going to use this time to do that. Something I did not mention the last couple of times is that I unfortunately lost my dad last year. I stopped counting the number of blood transfusions he received before he died at 55. Every time you see these transfusions, you think about how people gave up their time to give this blood to keep people going for another day. That is what happens. We can save lives by donating blood. The average age of a blood donor in Ireland is 46. We can do better in trying to get younger people to donate blood. You can donate blood from the age of 18. The maximum age is 65. Perhaps we should look at the older age category as well. I was talking to the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and, as of yesterday, it had up to 5.8 days' supply. That is all. It does not have weeks' worth. We really need it. The service likes to have seven days' supply but it only had 5.8. The service is appealing for more people, particularly people from different communities and ethnicities, to donate blood. That is where education really comes in. I will now provide a staggering figure. Only 3% of the population donate blood. That is crazy. We really need to get more people on board with doing it. I will read out a little message I got when I donated blood. It says:

Linda, thanks for donating. Your donation has just made its way to Tallaght Hospital.

The message before that said that the donation had just made its way to Clonmel Hospital, while the previous one said Tallaght Hospital. You get a lovely little message like that. I really believe that it is lovelier to give a present than to receive one. It is amazing to give blood. That is my thing for today. If anyone here or anyone listening can sign up to donate blood, they will be saving a life.