Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 107: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her proposals to amend the organ donation law (details supplied). [25541/09]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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My Department is currently preparing the General Scheme of a Human Tissue Bill to regulate the removal, retention, storage, use and disposal of human tissue from deceased persons, and the use of donated tissue from living persons for the purposes of transplantation and research. A public consultation on the draft Proposal for the General Scheme of the Bill took place between 9 April and 29 May. Submissions received are currently being analysed. The types of activities covered by the proposals include hospital post-mortem examinations and the use of organs and tissues for transplantation, research, anatomy and education.

One aim of the draft legislation is to establish a legal framework for organ donation which can benefit patients through transplantation of organs. Consent/authorisation is the defining principle underpinning any of the specified activities involving human tissue set out in the draft legislation. A separate, but related, public consultation on the different types of consent for the donation of organs for transplantation after death took place earlier this year and more than one thousand submissions were received. Ireland already has one of the higher rates of organ donation, ranked seventh in Europe in 2007. All organ donation in Ireland is coordinated through the Organ Procurement Service, which is based in Beaumont Hospital.

My Department is analysing all submissions received from the consultation process and aims to present the final General Scheme to Government for its approval in the Autumn.