Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is one issue I wish to raise. There is a misunderstanding in some of the questioning that has been going on that we need to talk about in regard to the birth certificate. Where a child is born in a country, their birth is registered in that country and they receive a birth certificate which is a legal document. When the person applies for a passport, and when all of the legal issues in Ireland have eventually been dealt with, the passport forever and a day shows that the person's citizenship is of Ireland but the place of birth on the passport states the city and the country where the person was born. We have had discussion as to whether the surrogate mother should be on the birth certificate or not and how that should be. That is not in the gift of the Irish Government to legislate for. We are talking about a measure by which we can ensure the identity and gestational information of the surrogate mother, and the donor if there is a donor involved, are registered and that there is a requirement to register it.

There has been a misunderstanding in the committee, and the professor’s discussion this morning highlighted it to me to be fair, which is that it is not in our gift to legislate for that.