Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for taking the time to appear before the committee and for sharing their stories with us. They have spoken very positively about their experience growing up as a child of surrogacy while also voicing challenges associated with it. I am glad that the experiences were very positive for them.

I know many others would have serious issues with identity following donor conception. Are they familiar with a lady called Sarah Dingle? She is an Australian woman who is donor-conceived. She addressed the UN in 2019 regarding surrogacy. She basically said that there is no right to have a child under international law and that children are not goods or services that any state or business can provide. Ms Dingle along with other persons born via surrogacy have spoken about the commodification, being conceived to meet the needs of others, half their identity being missing and the exploitation of gamete donors and women who act as surrogates. They spoke of decades of profiteering in a global trade of sperm, eggs, embryos and wombs. If our guests could say something to those women and men, what would it be? Do they think we should be hearing from a range of different voices and experiences with surrogacy in this committee?