Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

One of the questions I had intended to raise was the one raised by Deputy Mac Lochlainn. There are numbers of people who would use what they describe as traditional methods to effect a pregnancy in circumstances which may not involve intercourse but which may involve a donation, particularly of sperm, which would facilitate somebody becoming pregnant. There is an issue around that and how that is to be regarded under the Bill. Relevant to the preceding section - I did not want to hog matters in any way - is the question I asked earlier and I want to ask it again.

What consultation has been engaged in to date with members of the medical profession engaged in reproductive medicine and the fertility clinics, with regard to the practice of assisted reproduction by donor continuing in this State, should these provisions be introduced? Has the Minister considered what I believe would be a more appropriate and balanced approach, which I again say should be dealt with by the Department of Health and should not be part of this legislation, which is to make provision for assisted reproduction by both anonymous donor and non-anonymous donor, which is, because of the type of difficulties I referenced earlier, a policy that has been adopted in some other states where either is a possibility?

I want to come back to this without repeating everything I said previously. I do not believe that these sections in this Bill should be enacted in the context of maybe we will engage in a consultative process later or the Department of Health will do it. Either there has been a consultative process and the problems that I have described have been addressed, and what is stated here by the Minister disagrees with what is stated by the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the passage I read out, or, if the Minister agrees with what I read out, how is it that we are in this space where this is going ahead with these provisions in it that were not part of the original consultative process and without, as it seems to me, an adequate consultative process having occurred? I think it is only now dawning on members of the medical profession that this is an area of major difficulty.

I do not believe that the majority of couples who currently anticipate requiring assistance from fertility clinics and assisted reproduction would be aware of what we are doing with this Bill on this issue and I do think this aspect of the Bill should be part of a broader consultative process because it was not part of the original consultative process on the Bill. That consultative process would appropriately be dealt with, without upsetting members of this committee, by the health committee because it uniquely requires looking at some medical issues and availabilities. I do not want us, out of the best of idealistic motives, and I am not attributing any ill motives to anyone, by facilitating children to trace their origins, to create the unintended consequences of creating a barrier which up to now does not exist to assisted reproduction by donation in Ireland.