Professor Conor O'Mahony:

On the timeframe question, there is no doubt the committee has been given a bit of steep hill to climb to do all this in three months. I commend all the committee members on their hard work and it is very clear people are putting in an enormous amount of time and effort and are taking the matters incredibly seriously. I know many members are prefacing questions by saying how complicated the issue is and they are still learning but it is clear that all the members are very much getting their head around the topic despite the complexity. It is a result of the hard work everyone has put in, which is fantastic to see. There is much to do and three months is a very short amount of time in which to do it. The report must also be produced. I know well in my job, where I write many reports, that much time and effort goes into writing the report after putting in the time to gather information in the first place. It is a very short timeframe.

Aside from the work of the committee, the target of getting the Bill done before the summer recess is very tight. It is in some senses an arbitrary target. I know people in the Civil Service and legislative system more generally might say it is a slightly naïve comment because things can change from year to year, including the order of business. It has taken us years to reach this point and of course we would like to see this done quickly. We would all like to see that there would be no further delay but whatever we enact will regulate surrogacy in Ireland for a generation. Realistically speaking, there is not going to be an appetite to come back and tweak this in a big way any time soon. I am certainly of the view that it would be much better for this to take another six or 12 months, if necessary, to get it right rather than putting through something now that is incomplete or where there may be difficulties and it remains how we do things for 20 years or more.

Ideally, I would rather see the committee given a little more time and space to really do its work to the best possible standard. Looking at its current form, I would rather see the Bill coming back around next year than being enacted in its current form.