Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to be present. I welcome the delegations. The documentation is daunting and I have many questions to ask. I am addressing my first question to Barnardos, the Children's Rights Alliance and Family and Life Alliance. In theory, we are all saying that the rights of the child are paramount. Bearing that in mind as our guiding principle, is it in the best interests of the child to give a single man, a single woman or a same-sex couple who cannot give him or her both a mother and a father the capacity to have a child? It should not be forgotten this is by deliberate design as opposed to through natural circumstances.