An average of nearly 300 people a day have added their names to the opt-out register for organ donation since legislation was introduced six months ago, making every adult a donor unless they expressly withdraw their consent.
A total of 58,482 had opted out of the scheme by 31 December, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has revealed, equating to more than 2,000 people every week since the law was effected on 17 June.
The Human Tissue Act 2024 was aimed at increasing organ donation rates by presuming that all adults living in Ireland for at least a year consent to donating their organs unless they have formally registered an objection.
However, the rate at which people are opting out has slowed since the legislation came into force. An initial surge saw almost 40,000 people add their names to the register in the first 10 days at a rate of nearly 155 every hour.
We were joined on The Agenda this morning by freelance journalist Darragh McDonagh who told us more about this.
We were also joined by Fianna Fail TD Cormac Devlin, who has previously spoken to us on The Agenda about organ donation after bringing it up in The Dail.