12 December 2006
Dr. Henry: I thank Deputy McManus for her comments on the Bill I introduced eight years ago. I also thank two legal friends who worked on the legislation, Dr. David Tompkin and Dr. Ian McAuley of Dublin City University. The reason I introduced the Bill was that it was perfectly obvious people were becoming involved in medical treatment in a highly emotional, expensive area which carried some risks for the women in question.
It is interesting that the section of the report listing the key issues failed to refer to the best interests of the couple or woman. This is a grave omission. My sole purpose in introducing legislation was to provide that a list of clinics be drawn up alongside the services they offered and their success rates and charges. I was well aware that problems had arisen as regards other issues but that is a completely separate matter. Surely the Department could make an effort to address this issue.
I ask in that regard because approximately six months ago a woman approached me and said that a specific treatment had been recommended to her, inquiring whether I knew anything about it. I told her that I did not, but that I would endeavour to look it up on her behalf. The treatment was to cost her thousands of euros, but it was described as experimental, with use recommended only in very specific situations. Another report said that it was useless. Do we not think about what is happening to patients or the best interests of the woman? The procedure would have involved some risk to her.
Initially, the Department relied on the Irish Medical Council, whose ethical guidelines were expected to cover everything. Then it realised that some of those involved in treatment were not medical practitioners but embryologists and other scientists. Having considered the issue, I feel that we cannot rely on what happens in the Department, and our best bet may be the Irish Fertility Society, which does its very best in an area where, through no fault of officials, there will obviously be no legislation in my lifetime - and I feel fairly healthy.
Not all such clinics are involved in the Irish Fertility Society. It is not only a matter of people crossing the Border to seek treatment, as Deputy Connolly suggested, since they are also going abroad to Spain and Ukraine. There is also the issue of surrogacy, which does not seem to be tackled at all, despite the fact that in the newspapers one reads of high profile cases of people from the UK and so on returning from California with twins. It is well known that many Irish people have used surrogacy services abroad. There seems to be a notion that if something is kept out of the country, there is no worry in that regard. It is another area where we are pursuing an Irish solution.
Deputy McManus mentioned that some clinics are run for profit, and it is not right that Irish patients should take out second mortgages on their homes and so on without clinics having to state verifiably what they do and what their success rates are. I recently heard Professor Lord Robert Winston of the Hammersmith Hospitals Trust speaking in the Rotunda, and he was very pessimistic about certain forms of treatment. Despite that, one sometimes hears grandiose statements regarding success rates.
This is terribly disappointing, and the very worst thing from my perspective is that the best interests of the couple, and particularly the woman, do not feature in this list.
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