Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise. I went to another meeting and I am back again. It has been meeting after meeting. In his opening statement, Professor O'Mahony spoke about exploitation. What form does that take? The people I have spoken to regard their surrogate mother as an extension of their family. We have all heard the lovely stories about the family all being one. I want to hear more about what exploitation might mean and how we should tackle that in our proposal.

At our last meeting I asked some of the families who had been through surrogacy if they believed that transferring parental rights to the intending parents should happen before the birth of the child or after. Should we support the idea of birth certificates that mark the surrogate mother for tracing purposes later in life?

We cannot impose laws for other countries as we have seen in our discussions with witnesses from the different surrogacy groups who have appeared before the committee. What core standards does Professor O'Mahony believe should be in place to ensure we protect the rights of all parties involved and provide for proper identity tracing? I again compliment him on all his good work.