Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 19 May 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy

Preventing the Sale, Exploitation and Trafficking of Children: Discussion

Photo of Mary Seery KearneyMary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I, too, am in the same place as Ms de Boer-Buquicchio regarding sheer prohibition. It will not address the best interests of the child. In Ms de Boer-Buquicchio’s reports, she has set out clearly when a sale occurs and when it does not.

I think that is a very important distinction for intending parents to understand, because I think that people approaching surrogacy are coming from a point of view of only contracting for gestational services, without realising the subtleties that Ms de Boer-Buquicchio very clearly set out in her 2018 report. We have been speaking about that. We have a special rapporteur in Ireland who has issued a report that recommends a period of reflection also and there are other elements like that in it. We have perhaps the opportunity to become that country about which she will be able to say, "in other circumstances".

One of the elements in the 2019 report, in which Ms de Boer-Buquicchio responds to the submissions of stakeholders, is that she focuses on intermediaries, and a lot of the feedback appears to be on the fact that it is the intermediaries that are problematic and create the environment of sale. Would she like to expand on that please?

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