Dr. Mary Wingfield:

In cases where friends, or sisters, are involved, and often they are, the question arises of how to address that situation, and the future arrangements, with the surrogate's children and with the intending parents' children, because they will be meeting each other. Those are just some of the things that spring to mind in this regard. Again, the more we can insist on this aspect in Ireland in the context of domestic surrogacy, the more certain we can be it is happening. We can also, though, see clinics abroad that provide counselling. Equally, we can always provide the counselling here, even for people undertaking international surrogacy, just to ensure they are aware of the kinds of things I referred to and can think about them.

Moving on to funding, it is a difficult topic in IVF and fertility treatment because it is like asking how long is a piece of string. There are so many different scenarios to consider. It worries me that everyone is saying the legislation must be brought in first. There are a great many things we must think about that have nothing to do with the legislation and no one is thinking about those aspects, including who will be eligible for funding. Regarding the cost of IVF treatment, while our clinic is not-for-profit, it is also not-for-loss. We must charge because we have to fund all the people working in the clinic. It is labour intensive, and it costs about €6,000 for a cycle of IVF treatment. If the woman is under 35, there is a 50% chance of getting a baby from that cycle. If people are lucky, they might get two children from that treatment, and some people even get three. A woman over 40, however, has a 20% chance of having a baby from IVF treatment. This means some couples can easily end up spending €20,000 trying to have a baby. Nobody gets any public funding for this treatment, even people with a medical card or those on minimum wage. There is no help for anybody. Even people like me, who are doctors, struggle to fund IVF treatment, especially in the cases of people who have medical problems and if the treatment does not go easily for them. Conversely, we cannot fund everybody, so we will have to make decisions in this regard. If intending parents have three children already, would they qualify for funding? Would we fund donor sperm for same-sex couples? Therefore, there is a great deal we must be thinking about in this context. It is not going to be popular, and that may be one of the reasons no politician is going to stand up and say that these people can have funding, while these other people cannot. It is not going to be easy, and we must start working on this.