Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank both witnesses. I thank Professor Madden for giving us the opportunity to have this discussion. Senator Ruane a number of weeks ago, very early in our meetings, touched on the idea of a paternalistic attitude that women cannot make this decision for themselves because of their socio-economic background or the county in which they live. While I am not ignoring the fact that we need to put in place safeguards, one of the themes that comes across is that this is a matter of safeguards against intermediaries and what they may be up to and how they may exploit the situation for their own profit and that we need to focus on that, not whether or not the surrogate mother is paid, given that, potentially, she is the only person in the entire process who is not paid and we do not consider the actions of others to be unethical and do not challenge the fact that they are paid because we accept their professional role. That would also be consistent with the non-sale of children if we are merely compensating people for their gestational services. That is important, so I really appreciate that it has been raised.

As for intermediaries, Professor Madden's submission sets in place almost guidelines as to how we ensure that a surrogate mother reaches that level of consent personally, and I appreciate that. I do not have a question about that other than to acknowledge it. Professor Madden may wish to elaborate on it.

I thank Dr. Tobin for his document. Both witnesses' submissions are pragmatic. I do depart from Dr. Tobin in his recommendations, as he may have expected I would, in that right now, today, in Dolphin House, in Temple Bar, there are families going into the family court looking for maintenance orders, access orders and so on, where family relationships have broken down and women are trying to get payment support for their children. I can guarantee Mr. Tobin that not one of those mothers in those courts is the mother of a surrogate-born child because she has no rights. She is afraid to go to court in cases of family breakdown because we have no legislation in place that would support her and we have completely abandoned those women and second parents, including those in same-sex couples.

We have abandoned their rights to the child who they have been there for and who they are parent to in the definitions under the Child and Family Relationships Act. We need this urgently. We need it urgently because there may be, for example, cases where a father has an illness that potentially will be fatal, those mothers and their children may be left without.

To revert to the original statement by the Department of Health, they used words like "emotional" to suggest this is an emotional issue. They referred to this as being a small group of people as a reason to carve this out, to kick it down the road and to stick their heads in the sand, rather than dealing with legislating for it. From that perspective, I disagree.

I had better stop speaking or I will not give Dr. Tobin a chance to speak. However, I do appreciate the pragmatism in his submissions.