Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for those helpful and insightful contributions. It is very important to get the legal perspectives and to hear the experiences of those families most directly affected. I was glad to support Equality for Children, which co-hosted the event outside Leinster House in November with Irish Families Through Surrogacy. It was good to meet the witnesses at that time and since then.

What we have heard today is that this is a deeply complex area, that the current lack of regulation is simply unsustainable and it is leaving many families simply without recognition or protection in law. Therefore, we have to change it and we have to legislate. I commend Professor O'Mahony and Dr. Bracken on setting out so clearly what needs to be done. I have read Professor O'Mahony's report from 2020. I was a member of the justice committee during the period from 2011 to 2016 when we tried to legislate on this area. In the end, as the witnesses will be aware, the Children and Family Relationships Act came out of that process but it did not regulate surrogacy because there were simply too many complex issues for us to be able to get agreement or consensus on prior to the holding of the marriage equality referendum. Time was against us at that point but it has left this legal vacuum. I am conscious there will be an Oireachtas special committee on international surrogacy .

I wanted to raise particularly with Professor O'Mahony and Dr. Bracken but also with Ms Merrigan and Ms Cohalan and their groups the key issues we have found the hardest to navigate in law. How do we deal with those? First, there is the distinction between altruistic and commercial surrogacy. It is much easier to provide for altruistic domestic surrogacy but much more complex if we try to create a framework to recognise international and commercial surrogacy. How do we do that in such a way that we are protecting not only the rights of children, which are crucial and the witnesses have addressed that, but the rights of women, particularly women in developing countries who may be very much open to exploitation where there is not a proper regulatory framework? That is the real challenge with international surrogacy. I am conscious that with adoption we have the Hague Conventions but no equivalent for surrogacy. I would love to hear the witnesses' views on that.

The other point we had difficultly with was how to provide for sanction for those who do not use the frameworks that are provided for in law. To penalise parents is to penalise children. That was a real issue. It is a really difficult issue in drafting surrogacy legislation. These are issues that have been discussed previously. The special committee on international surrogacy will be dealing with some of these issues but these are some of the crucial questions.

I commend the witnesses and note we are all conscious there are children and families currently in Ireland who do not have legal recognition, status or protections and we need to sort that out. It is incumbent on us in this Oireachtas term to do so. That is for sure. I agree we need to regulate not only domestic but international surrogacy because that is the reality for many people. With that in mind, the witnesses might comment on how we address those very tricky issues.