Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will eventually get to a few questions, but, like others, I want to put it on the record that I reject the idea that we are setting up a double standard. Ms Gamble spoke at the beginning about assuming all domestic surrogacy is kosher whereas international surrogacy is nothing but evil and about how that assumption is deeply wrong. Saying that we are simply rubber-stamping a double standard is prejudging the work of this committee. This committee and its members in their contributions have acknowledged there is a range of experiences and arrangements that go from the altruistic to the exploitative at the far end. Our job here is to prevent that double standard and to find a way to put in safeguards in regulations and legislation for mothers, intended parents, surrogate mothers and for the children at the heart of it, so that people who enter into this process, often after very difficult personal circumstances as have been described, can know that they are not engaging in an unethical process and that they, due to the work we are doing here, can take some comfort from that and know that their children's rights are respected. To simply dismiss it as a double standard ignores the work we are trying to do here and undermines the committee as a whole.

With regard to the birth certificates, the special rapporteur on children here spoke about the ECHR right to identity, and the role of the knowledge and identity of the surrogate and the importance of that. Perhaps that is something we must examine here in terms of the birth certificates and how that looks practically.

I have a question for Dr. Horsey. She referred to the interesting research on the surrogates' experiences and her interviews with them. It would be good if she could send the committee a copy of that research as I am sure we all would love to read it. Is she aware of any other international studies in other jurisdictions in the EU or globally doing similar research on the experience of surrogates in other countries?