The Coroner’s (Amendment) Bill 2018 passed the 3rd stage of scrutiny in the Dáil in 2018 and the minister for justice and equality Charles Flanagan promised it would proceed to the 4th stage by the end of January 2019. This date passed as did the next promised date of the end of February with nothing progressed!
In light of recent Maternal deaths and in the knowledge that statistics dictate others in the coming months it is vital that the passage of the Coroners (Amendment) Bill 2018 into law is treated as an urgent matter in the Dáil. This is important to the families involved, to families who are reliving the Maternal death of their loved one but also to all families in Ireland who are living in fear of their loved ones giving birth in Ireland.
We have all been emailing Minister Flanagan charles.flanagan@oireachtas.ie to no avail, however would you now be able to email the chief whip Sean Kyne who has influence over the agenda in the Dáil asking for this bill to be heard as early as possible? his email is: sean.kyne@oireachtas.ie . If you could cc the Ceann Comhairle ceann.comhairle@oireachtas.ie who can also have influence and Breda Burke who is the secretary of the Business Committee Breda.Burke@oireachtas.ie it would be great.
(photo is of Access 2000 women's group Wexford in March 2019 delivering this petition and 500+ postcards signed during the recent exhibition at Wexford Arts Centre)
Below is a template letter you can use in case you are short on time to compose your own.
Many many thanks in advance
Dear Sir/Madam,
As statistics predicted the tragic Maternal death in the Coombe on christmas day 2018 has been followed by another Maternal death in Cork this month, the baby in Cork also died.
As the Coroners (Amendment) Bill 2018 has not been passed into law these families need to fight for an inquest that should be initiated automatically for them; they need to be free to focus on their and their children’s deep grief, attend to children as a single parents and in the case of the Coombe case to care for his new born child.
In light of these most recent Maternal deaths and in the knowledge that statistics dictate others in the coming months it is vital that the passage of the Coroners (Amendment) Bill 2018 into law is treated as an urgent matter in the Dáil. It is of vital importance to the families involved, to families who are reliving the Maternal death of their loved one but also to all families in Ireland who are living in fear of their loved ones giving birth in Ireland.
It is evident from the attached that the main purpose of introducing the Coroners (Amendment bill) 2018 was because the Government's Coroners Bill 2007 was lapsed and this complicated Clare Daly's Coroners Bill 2015. The intent of the Coroners (Amendment) Bill 2018 is "to provide, in particular, for Mandatory reporting to, and investigation by, a Coroner of all Maternal deaths, together with legal aid for the next of kin at the inquest in cases of Maternal death". Nothing must now complicate or delay the Bills progression.
It is deeply distressing to a large number of the public that the proposed date for the report stage of the Bill was changed from January 2019 to February 2019.
To demonstrate their fury that this date has now long passed; 500+ individuals signed postcards and 8K+ signed a petition; these were personally delivered to the Minister for Justice on March 13th (at personal expense, please see attached photos); these can be viewed at the Ministers office reference: DJE-MO-00274-2019.
These large numbers of people are waiting to know when the bill will be reported to the Dáil so it can progress into law perhaps you could assist in letting us know when this will happen?
Kind regards,