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

I hope to come in on the next round because I was impressed by our other two key expert witnesses as well, and the information they had to offer.

My background is that I worked on the launch of the longitudinal Growing up in Ireland study. I am fascinated by the in-depth work Professor Golombok has carried out, the breadth of her research and its findings. I am impressed by her clarification in the last contribution that the cohort is a representative sample based on wider statistics. That information is now on the record, which allays any concerns regarding the sample size.

I was interested to hear that at seven years of age children born through surrogacy were much more advanced in their self-identification awareness than peers and this manifested itself in many cases in behavioural issues which effectively worked themselves out over the next couple of years. Will Professor Golombok elaborate on that?