Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was listening to the contributions on my way here. I have a few questions. I might start with Dr. Muldoon and his colleagues. We need regulation because things are going to happen whether we have regulation or not. People can have a certain view and be against something but it will happen regardless of whatever decisions are made by any person who is in government. I would like to get Dr. Muldoon's views on that. There are children who are in urgent situations because of their parents, whose family status may not currently be recognised, having very serious medical issues. What would Dr. Muldoon recommend in that regard? Is there a course of action that could be taken urgently in respect of those children?

I also have questions for Ms Nic Dhomhnaill with regard to child psychology in general. There are all sorts of different types of families in the modern era. I welcome that. There are people who parent alone. There are people who have one, two, three or four parents. There is a whole range of situations. It does not matter to me whether there is one person parenting alone or ten parents or whether those parents are male or female. I would like to get Ms Nic Dhomhnaill's general view. With regard to child psychology, there is a range of issues that all children face which may have no connection or link to surrogacy. There could be what some would deem a traditional family, that is, a mother and a father, a female and a male, and 2.5 children, in which everything looks great from the outside but those children may, for whatever reason, be seeing child psychologists regularly. I am not saying that as a criticism. I am a big believer in counselling and I believe that play therapy should be available in all schools and that all children should have some type of play therapy because it is very good for them. The point I am trying to get to is that it is really important that we do not in some way single out children born through surrogacy as having issues that other children do not have. It is really important that message goes out loud and clear from the committee today. I would like to get Ms Nic Dhomhnaill's views on that.

Perhaps Dr. Muldoon could go first and address the question of regulation and those urgent cases in particular. I am conscious that this committee will operate for, perhaps, three months and will then produce a report and that it will be some time before all of that gets into legislation. There are some really difficult situations out there and I am interested in Dr. Muldoon's views.