Professor Nóirín Hayes:

I am not actually speaking from a medical point of view but from the psychological development and early child development attachment perspective, the research certainly indicates that openness about provenance is positive for children and therefore I would support and have supported identification for the child. The genetic link can be important to children and from the research that is available, it seems that in cases such as surrogacy for instance, we are still in the early stages of understanding the trajectory across the lifespan but in early adolescence, young adults do have a curiosity but are largely indifferent and do not have a great urge to seek out further information but the observations that were made by my colleagues about the sense of belonging and the sense of being part of something as one gets older are valid and that does appear to be the case. Where openness has been the norm, it makes that much easier for everybody and there is no secrecy or apparent deception. While I appreciate that parents sometimes choose not to tell their children out of a sense of protection and so forth and not necessarily out of deceit, it is nonetheless a withholding of information to which children have a right and consequently I am very much in support of it and believe that the research supports it also.