John Dolan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have been moved to say a few words. I will make a statement and an observation and I invite a response. In my 63rd year, it is my view that the yearning women have to have a child is very significant, to put it mildly. When that does not happen it is a cause of deep distress. That is my view of it and I did not get it from a book.

I want to make an observation on Professor Hayes's opening statement. She spoke about the welfare of the child and stated "Relationships are the primary mode through which children develop and the effect of the relational process is often more powerful than that of the context within which it occurs." Then she went on to say that "Stressors in early childhood can disrupt neurologic, metabolic and immunologic systems leading to poorer developmental outcomes." She went on to note that "Where parents experience stress through uncertainty or lack of clarity around the security of their role as parents, the environment within the children are developing may be unnecessarily stressful." I am stopping my observation at that point.

The question of happiness has come up and that is a nice philosophical conundrum which has been thought about in relation to democracies and all sorts of state systems. Does Professor Hayes wish to make a comment about the discussion we have had around the distressing nature and the point that is being made here about stressors? They may or may not fit together but it just struck me when I read back what she said in the context of what we have been listening to for the past half an hour or so.