Maternal deaths to be reported to coroner in new bill

All stillbirths, perinatal deaths, and maternal deaths will now have to be reported to the coroner under strengthened laws published by the Justice Minister.

Coroners will be given wider scope for inquiry at inquests and the bill clarifies that they are not limited to establishing the medical cause of death but can also seek to establish the circumstances in which the death occurred.

Publishing the Coroners (Amendment) Bill 2018, Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said the legislation had been a “personal priority” for him.

The bill comes after years of campaigning by Independents4Change TD Clare Daly, who put forward a bill in 2015.

Mr Flanagan said that his bill will address “a key problem in a number of high-profile cases which have caused great public unease — that some maternal deaths and perinatal deaths occurring in hospitals, which should have been reported to coroners because they raised issues of medical error and were ‘unnatural deaths’ under the Coroners Act 1962 – were not so reported”.

“Bereaved families, and in some instances even coroners, experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining basic information which should have been provided to them,” he said.