Dr. Trevor Redmond:

To expand on that, there have been one or two cases, as Mr. Munro said, and we will not go into the details of them. As a general comment, the safeguards build on the legal framework that exists, and I think the committee has heard evidence in that regard. The guidelines that were developed in 2012 build on the existing legislative framework and there is a limit to what can be done within that, which is what we work within.

As has been said, the requirements of the guidelines are quite stringent, but they reflect what can be done in the context of the existing legislation. Of course, the guidelines are not based in legislation and are not statutory, so we apply them in that context. If there were a difficult case whereby someone did not wish to adhere to the guidelines, that would put our Department in particular in a difficult position. That is why, if this is to be regulated, we would see the benefit in regulation that brought greater clarity to the requirements, whereby people would know that in advance and the safeguards would be clear from the outset.

I am not aware of any bilateral agreement but it would depend on the existing policy. I could certainly foresee possibilities and I think the committee has heard proposals in this regard. If front-loaded, pre-surrogacy arrangements were being entered into and if there were a framework, that would assist our Department in the context of working with new countries, for example. As has been mentioned, that would pose particular difficulties.