AN ABBEYFEALE woman who recently underwent Ireland’s first lung transplant, is urging people not to put off getting an organ donation card.

Explaining that "the donor and their family gave me back my life and hope,” Veronica Doyle said that highlighting the need for organ donors was her main reason for going public.

"Up to five people could benefit from different organs. And it is also now possible to fill in your own card at the back of a driving licence,” she said.

The 56-year-old mother of three, had the transplant operation for a single lung nearly three weeks ago. And she is now recovering at home in County Limerick .

Speaking at a press conference in Dublin’s Mater Hospital last week, she said that she is "looking forward to the simple pleasure of walking down her garden path or going to the supermarket for the first time in years”, thanks to her miracle operation.

Suffering from chronic emphysema which she developed 14 years ago, Ms Doyle said that she was eventually on oxygen 24 hours a day and she found it difficult to dress herself unaided as a result of the disease.

Since the operation, which involved 27 people in the theatre and lasted three and a half hours, she is enjoying the simple things like being able to brush her teeth and wash her hands on her own.

Dr Jim Egan, the lead transplant physician, and surgeons Freddie Wood and James McCarthy had waited months before being able to carry out an operation after finding a suitable match whose blood type increased her chances of getting a donor lung.

Dr Egan said he hoped that all lung transplants on Irish patients will be performed here in two to three years and people will no longer have to travel to Newcastle for the operation.

There are 31 people in Ireland waiting for lung transplants. And Ms Doyle said that "she wanted to offer hope to others” who needed the operation