Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I intend to bring an amendment to this section on Report Stage to create a new section after this section which would deal with the jurisdiction of the District and Circuit Court for the purposes of sections 19, 20, 29, 30 and 33.

I wish to say a few things about Part 3. I mentioned that some statistics were collected by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. It collates statistics in relation to AHR procedures conducted in European Union countries. The majority of the Irish fertility clinics give information to the ESHRE on a voluntary basis regarding the AHR procedures they conduct, but not all of them do. Because of the lack of legislation and regulation in this area, we cannot be absolutely definitive about the information, and it does not encompass all AHR procedures that are conducted in Ireland. The most recent statistics available are from 2010. Those figures show that there were seven IVF clinics in Ireland, of which six provided data for 2010. In 2009, six out of seven clinics provided information to the ESHRE. The data for 2010 show that there were 1,856 cycles of in vitrofertilisation and 1,320 of intracytoplasmic sperm injection. In 2009 there were 1,987 cycles of IVF and 1,328 cycles of ICSI. It should be noted that each cycle does not necessarily result in a pregnancy or the birth of a child. The numbers relate only to IVF and ICSI and not to other AHR procedures, so we do not have exact figures for the number of children born on foot of AHR procedures in Ireland. These are the most comprehensive figures I could get.