Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms O'Keeffe, Mr. Duff and Professor O'Mahony. I find this a very emotive subject, to be quite honest. I have done a little bit of investigating into this and significant research over the past couple of months. Surrogacy is prohibited in many of our European countries. It is legal in the United Kingdom and Greece, as long as it is done on a non-commercial basis. Ukraine, along with Russia, is one of the few countries where commercial surrogacy is legal.

The destination seems to be Ukraine. This is, obviously, causing me some trouble, especially with the war ongoing. The estimated global market in Ukraine is €5 billion. Over the past five years, more than 4,000 children were born via surrogacy in Ukraine, and 19% of them have foreign parents. How can we possibly ban it here and give it the green light in Ukraine? This sets a complete double standard. It is okay to exploit Ukrainian women, but not Irish women.

From Professor O'Mahony's statement, I get that it is happening anyway and that we need to ensure that parents and children, produced by surrogacy, have a proper legal framework. That is very defeatist. Has the Department looked at countries such as Ukraine to agree to allow a couple of countries where commercial surrogacy is banned-----