Having served on the Bioethics Consultative Committee for 15 years, and 10 years as its chairman, I would like to make some suggestions about its further development. One should keep in mind that there is a pan-national EU network of bioethics committees called NEC (national Ethics Committees) and that they work very closely with the EU Commission’s EGE secretariat and ethics sector. The EGE is the European Group on Ethics which provides advice to the president of the European Commission himself. The BCC also co-ordinates work done by the Council of Europe in the subject especially within the Bioethics Convention and its protocols which urgently need signing!

First constituted in the early 1990s by then Minister for Health Dr Louis Galea, with the terms of reference being clearly to provide ethical advice to the Minister and Department of Health, it has done sterling work. It has provided very many reports and given sterling advice to many health care sectors and also provided support in court cases or police work in the sphere of bioethics. Many of its reports are to be found on the E-Health website while others are in print form. The members of the ad hoc committee are appointed for a number of years, usually five, to advise practically anybody who asks anything on national bioethics issues. Many of its multi-disciplinary and highly qualified members are also members of research ethics committees in several academic, educational and health related bodies. All members including the chairman are not paid for their services.

I would like to give some advice to the powers that be, about how the position of the BCC can evolve. First of all it should be removed from its ad hoc status and made a full statutory committee with its members financially remunerated. The committee prepares quite a number of hefty academic reports yearly, which includes much hard work from the many members involved. It is difficult to entice many academic members to spend long hours studying and preparing reports for government consumption but at the same time not being paid for their efforts. Everybody is really busy with other things on their jobs and participation and attendance should be paid as with other statutory consultative committees. 

The committee also needs to be set up in a more permanent fashion. Members should be appointed for a number of years and they should rotate with one third being changed every time so that there is continuity in the work being carried out. Political parties should also be represented on the committee so that they are all well informed of the big scientific and ethical changes coming our way. It should of course remain a multi-disciplinary committee with members from various scientific disciplines associated with biology and its ethical conundrums.

I also suggest that the committee, as in many other countries, is transferred from the Ministry of Health to that of the Office of the Prime Minister. The reason for this suggestion is simple. Bioethics involves many human sectors and disciplines not only from medicine but also psychology and sociology. Other sectors are often involved in preparing reports such as agriculture with the issues of GMOs and GMMs, energy and entropy, trade unions with respect to workers rights such as what to do with genetic tests with regard to employment, insurance and education as regards the learning curriculum and the application of genetic testing to educational institutions. Legal issues also often crop up if not also police and court work. Other government departments are usually involved, as are constitutional councils. I always advised the government to take Bioethics very seriously because as time passes many bioethical issues will crop up that need wide consultation such as the IVF legislation recently enacted by the previous government. No government can expect to be able to deal with the bioethical issues that exist and will also crop up in the future. I suggest urgent action on the matter.