Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the three witnesses for coming here to talk to us. It is really valuable to us because they are sharing their lived experience. We have been given the job of coming up with a report and recommendations on international surrogacy in quite a tight timeframe. It is possible for us to achieve that only if we hear from everybody involved. It is really brave of the witnesses to share very personal details of their lives, and I thank them for doing so because it enriches our experience as a committee and will enrich our legislative journey in respect of this matter. I thank them for that.

Last week, we had before us a psychologist who spoke about the really positive outcomes for children where families have been very open about surrogacy. I am struck by how different all the witnesses' stories are as to how they came to know they were born through surrogacy. What the lady before us last week said was about the importance of support for children born through surrogacy as they accept that. I know that the witnesses are all coming from different stages of that in the context of their childhoods.

I am interested in hearing their opinions about how we as a State should be providing counselling or whatever support they think could be beneficial in an optional way to ensure everybody is comfortable with it. I have been really reassured by all our their contributions around how certain they are in their identities and how positive an experience they have had from this.

Our guests might forgive me. I think it was Ms Baldwin, though I am not entirely sure, who said how wanted children were as well and that struck me too.

One thing Ms Roberts said in her latest contribution is surrogates do not want to be considered a mother and that is quite an important thing for us to delve a little deeper into. She also spoke about two potential solutions floated to the birth certificate issue that we are talking about every week. The first related to the database and secondly that six-week period. She reference the idea originally came from someone else but I would appreciate it if she had a little more information to talk us through that further, so we could identify whether that might be a potential solution for us in Ireland. I am asking the three guests to share their opinions on what optional support should be put in place for families and children in particular, and then for Ms Roberts to take the specific question around the databases and the six-week period.