Lorraine Clifford-Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our witnesses, in particular Ms Holub, Ms Armstrong and Ms Schiewe for their contributions. We have been on a journey ourselves, educating ourselves about surrogacy. We have heard from many different groups and parents who have used surrogacy. For me, the women’s contributions here today have been the most powerful contributions I have heard, because I often feel the surrogate is left out of the conversation. To hear from them the reasons they undertook this journey with other people to produce a lovely little baby at the end is really powerful. I thank the women. Like my colleague, Deputy Funchion, I especially wish to acknowledge Ms Holub and the very difficult time she, her family, her country and her people are going through. We stand with her on that.

I have some brief questions. Deputy Funchion’s question about the birth certificate were particularly good. Even though we are examining international surrogacy, some other witnesses have presented to us to say that because the domestic arrangement is so limited, especially regarding the birth certificate, it forces people into an international situation, and that if we had a better domestic arrangement here, perhaps it would be better all round for people.

Ms Armstrong and Ms Schiewe are both Canadian surrogates and got their expenses paid. Ms Holub indicated she was compensated fairly for her service. Would Ms Armstrong and Ms Schiewe have any objection to being compensated fairly? Would it have made any difference to them had they been compensated fairly, as Ms Holub was?