Coroners Service
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22
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Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG), Dún Laoghaire

Again, I will direct that to my colleague, the Minister for justice, because coronial post mortems are a different thing. There is a difficulty recruiting pathologists across the country. For example, our friends in Belfast are having real difficulty on the paediatric and perinatal pathology side, which is very distressing for families with the loss of a child or a baby. There is a shortage generally but we have to create a distinction between the justice system and the health system, which continues to do its work. We need pathologists to continue to do their work, both in terms of diagnostics and research and also in terms of something that is separate and ancillary and arises as a consequence of the coronial court process. The latter is very much a matter for the Department of justice. Nobody cares about that when it is their loved one whose funeral is being delayed. In that space of real tragedy, real hurt and real pain, nobody cares who is responsible for it; they just want the issue resolved. I will discuss it with my colleague, the Minister for justice.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-22