Mary Upton
Ceist:152 Dr. Upton asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the proposed role of the recently established Irish Council on Bio-Ethics; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4432/03]
Written Answers. - Medical Ethics.
The establishment of the council on bio-ethics was recommended by the report of the inter-departmental group on modern biotechnology, which reported in October 2000. My Department invited the Royal Irish Academy to establish the council and it is funded by an enabling grant from Forfás.
Critically, the council is independent and autonomous and has established its own terms of reference and work programme. The council's terms of reference are: to identify and interpret the ethical questions raised by biological and medical research in order to respond to, and anticipate questions of substantive concern; to investigate and report on such questions in the interests of promoting public understanding, informed discussion and education and; in the light of the outcome of its work, to stimulate discussion through conferences, workshops, lectures, published reports and where appropriate suggest guidelines.
The council has recently appointed a scientific director and has established a number of working groups. Full details may be obtained at www.bioethics.ie.
I strongly welcome and value the role which the council can play in clarifying and reporting on the ethical issues which increasingly arise with the advance of medical and biological technology. I expect the outputs of the council will be extremely valuable to policy makers, physicians, scientists and society in dealing with these issues.