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

I want to raise a different issue under section 32. This section provides for two things: for information to be given either to a child over 18 or to the parents of a child under 18 concerning matters recorded in the register. However, it also provides in subsection (2) that the donor of a sperm or ovum, and it will more frequently be sperm than ova because of the way reproductive medicine tends to work and the difficulties people experience, "may request the Minister to provide him or her with information from the Register on the number of persons who have been born as a result of the use in a DAHR procedure of a gamete donated by the donor, and the sex and year of birth of each of them". How will that work in practice? Is the Minister obliged to respond and provide the information? Is there a timeframe within which information should be provided? Is there any basis for the Minister not to provide the information? I am just curious about how that will work in practice. I am open to correction, but it does not seem that there is anything else in the Bill of relevance to that subsection if the Minister refuses, for example, to provide the information, or decides to take five years to make the decision. I may be wrong.