Ms Claire O'Connell:

I thank the Deputy for the question. The first point concerned how to apply this to all the various areas, such as medical treatment, social welfare and that kind of thing. A very simple solution would be that once a person is named a parent and there is a pathway to being a parent, there would be a provision like what is currently in draft legislation. Essentially, an enactment referring to a mother, a father or a parent would include persons named in that parental order. It is kind of a wide sweep to include anybody. It is kind of a simple enough solution.

I will mention counselling, which is so important. It goes to the ethical nature of surrogacy and it is something that comes across in the 2022 Bill. The child's right to identity is so important but something that is lacking very much is counselling for the child when notified. The origins of the child would be disclosed to the child by the parent, first and foremost, and they are the doorway, I suppose. The provisions in the 2015 Act and 2022 Bill, as it is now, are that a child may apply for a birth certificate at some point, and at that point the child would be notified that there is an entry about him or her in the national surrogacy register. That is how these children find out. It comes from an office and it may be via letter or something. There is no provision for inserting or ensuring counselling is available to the child, or that it would be promoted, or that a referral mechanism would be included in the process of notifying the child.

There is also the question of passports and the wait is a problem. Again, a reference to a parent is to be inserted into the Passports Act 2008. What is concerning, particularly in the area of international surrogacy, is that a child would not be registered in the Irish registry of births but rather the foreign births register. There is a backlog and the website indicates it is two years long. It is a considerable problem that must be tackled in some way.