Ms Ciara Merrigan:

I thank the Senator for her questions and for explaining to us what her beliefs are. Her beliefs are not what I have experienced, and I am the lived experience. I have gone through the process and I did every single little piece of research I could possibly do to ensure it was a medical process I went through.

The Senator talked about whitewashing the surrogate. It is difficult to explain it to her, but I speak to my children every day about their surrogate mother. They know who she is and it is to be hoped they will meet her soon. We hope we will have days out together. Obviously, we live in different countries, so Covid has prevented that over the past couple of years. The surrogate mother is very much included in our lives every day. We honour her every day. There are photographs of her. My children see photographs of her, her children and her family. She is part of our life every day. I know it is the Senator's belief, but it can be slightly insulting to me and to my colleagues because, in Irish Families Through Surrogacy, it is a common approach that that is what we would do with our children. Our children know where they come from. They know who their surrogate mother is. They know we did not carry them in our tummies. We have to explain it to them in an age-appropriate way. We say mammy's tummy was broken and this very kind lady - I will not name her here publicly - helped mammy.