‘Soft opt-out’ organ donation bill is passed

Boyle native Niall Kennedy, a dialysis patient and nurse, with his wife Helen at the national launch of Organ Donor Awareness Week 2023. The new bill provides a statutory framework for organ donation and transplant services. Picture: Andres Poveda

Irish people will be deemed to be organ donors unless they have registered their wish not to donate as a long-awaited bill passed the Oireachtas on Wednesday.

Details of the Human Tissue (Transplantation, Post-Mortem, Anatomical Examination and Public Display) Bill 2022 were originally published by then-health minister Simon Harris in 2019 and followed on from a 2008 private members bill on the issue, which was introduced in 2008 by the late senator Fergal Quinn.