It could be easily missed but there's a really important piece of legislation making it's way through Oireachtas at the moment - the Coroners (Amendment) Act 2018 data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/…
Thousands of deaths are considered by #coroners every year in Ireland and these are hugely important not just for families who have lost loved ones, but for society as a whole
The #coroners system in Ireland is regulated by legislation from 1962. It's enormously outdated. A report in 2000 recommended wholesale reform of the system. @ClareDalyTD introduced an excellent Bill in 2015
@ClareDalyTD There are lots of great provisions in the current Bill: requiring inquests for deaths in or immediately following state custody or detention, inquests for maternal deaths and powers to inquire into stillbirths. And lots of necessary improvements of coroner powers
@ClareDalyTD But this feels like such a missed opportunity. The system itself is not well structured or regulated and it's very disappointing that government is not adopting the recommendations of the 2000 reort
@ClareDalyTD It's tinkering with a dysfunctional system, rather than achieving the scale of reform needed. Many families have told me how upsetting their experiences at inquests have been
@ClareDalyTD We owe @ClareDalyTD a mountain of praise and thanks for her dogged pushing of this issue.
@ClareDalyTD Myself and Prof Phil Scraton are commencing a research project on coroners in Ireland, in particular the role of gardai in the system, working with @ICCLtweet and funded by @_IHREC
The #coroners bill was considered at committee yesterday and will be back to the Dail in the new year 
It's quite incredible, to my mind, that we haven't had a requirement for #coroner inquests for deaths in Garda custody previously. Thankfully this is not a regular occurrence in Ireland but we need that requirement.
Daly concerned at discretion legislation gives coroners on whether to hold maternal death inquests, particularly as indirect maternal death numbers are rising
