Professor Deirdre Madden:

Ideally, what we would all like to see is some form of international consensus on this, an international convention that would ensure a uniform and consistent approach across all countries. That is ideally what we would like, perhaps, but it is a long way off. I spoke in my presentation about the fact we cannot require or expect countries in which surrogacy takes place to have the same legal provisions as ours. That is simply a fact. What I would like to see is that the regulatory system we have here would be satisfied that, wherever the surrogacy takes place, the law and practice - practice has to follow the law - in the relevant country provide as close as possible to an equivalency of the protection we have in Ireland. It will not be exactly the same because the legislation in both countries will not mirror each other, but for all practical purposes, the most important criteria we would like to see in any legal regime relate to the protection of the surrogate, making sure she is informed and has independent legal advice and ensuring she has proper psychological screening and support, medical assistance and the like. If those are the things we agree are the most important to ensure she is protected, the regulator would have to do due diligence to make sure that wherever the surrogacy is taking place provides that same level of protection. The welfare of children would also have to form part of that to make sure it is at least equivalent to what would be applicable here. For me, once all those legal criteria are satisfied in that country and the parents return to Ireland with the child, recognition of parentage in Ireland should flow from that. That is the system I would like to see.