Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their interesting and helpful information. Every week we come in here and want to learn and up our game just a little bit more, so it is very good to have such expertise in front of us.

Dr. Tobin and Professor Madden clearly highlighted the double standards we could be enshrining in our law, were we to continue the way we are going at the minute. If we do that, we will have a kind of back-door, for want of a better description, post-birth recognition of parentage. We need to recognise the parents. We have an issue that we have to rectify. We have give those children the rights they deserve. That is the basis of this committee. The rationale of what we are here for is to give those children born the rights that they deserve.

I was very curious when I was reading Dr. Tobin’s briefing document. I want to understand second-parent adoption a little bit better. He quite rightly said in his submission that it is not the preferred method but we should align something similar. These parents should not have to adopt. I refer to the French method, where it only takes four and a half months. How are they doing this? They are calling it second-parent adoption. How are they doing it so efficiently and quickly and giving those children the rights that they deserve and need?

My next question is directed to Professor Golombok. Identity is something we are always talking about in this committee. It is very important that we all have the understanding of who we are, where we came from and how we came into this world and an acceptance and celebration of that. In Professor Golombok’s experience, how do we do that? How do we, as a country, regulate to protect those identity rights?