Dr. Mary Wingfield:

Regarding commercialisation in the sector, I agree with Dr. Waterstone that it is unstoppable. There is big money and big business involved. It is a problem in every country in the world. We have private medicine in Ireland, which is fine as the State would not be able to cope if there was no private medicine. However, the difference between assisted human reproduction and other types of medicine is that one can go public or private in the case of any other medical condition. One can choose to go private, but the State will also provide a public service. Many politicians do not realise there is no public IVF or assisted human reproduction service available, even if one has a medical card. Unless someone can find a charity to help - there is a charity attached to Holles Street Hospital and our clinic; there are some other charities also available - there is no public funding available. People go into debt, sell their houses, relationships break up or people borrow from their parents and if the treatment does not work, they will have to go back again to their parents with nothing to show for it. On any ethical basis, there must be some public funding available. That would help in dealing with the commercialisation. It would be more similar to the private-public mix in other areas of medicine.

Deputy Margaret Murphy O'Mahony asked if there would be services available for children born through surrogacy. Again, it goes back to the Children and Family Relationships Act. Children born through donor conception often need counselling as they grow older, but it is provided in very few jurisdictions. There is certainly no provision for it. That brings us back to the draconian measure contained in the Children and Family Relationships Act whereby somebody who is over 18 years of age, going along happily in his or her life or, perhaps, very vulnerable in his or her life, on applying for a birth certificate is told by a civil servant that there is more information available on him or her and that he or she was donor conceived. If the person's parents have not told him or her this fact already, he or she has spent his or her life up to that point thinking his or her parents are his or her biological parents. There is no provision in the Act for counselling for such a person or even for who would give that information. The person who will be giving it knows nothing about the individual or whether he or she has a psychiatric history or attempted suicide last week. When we had discussions with the Department of Justice and Equality, the officials said, "It is not going to happen for 18 years, so we have plenty of time to work on it." That is not acceptable, but it was the response when we asked about-----