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

I thank our witnesses for being here. Their legal opinions, expertise and international experience are key pieces of the puzzle for us, because this committee has been tasked with making recommendations in a particularly complex area in a tight timeframe, as has been said. As we have heard, this is urgently-needed legislation and we are all here to prioritise this.

Regarding Ukraine, I thank Ms Hickey for all her work and collaboration with the Government. I thank Senator Seery Kearney, who cannot be with us today. I refer to, as it was put here today, rescuing babies and surrogates from Ukraine at the start of the war. I was proud to hear Ireland being spoken of as a world leader at that time. This is something we can all take some comfort in. It was fascinating to hear how Canada dealt with this same situation at the start of the war. “By way of intention” is a key phrase that I heard Ms Wasser use again and again. It is fascinating to try to get my head round the establishment of intention rather than genetics. This is something that is foreign to us here in Ireland. I could listen to Ms Justice O'Hanlon all day long. My gosh, she has so much knowledge, insight and so many practical things to say on this subject.

I was involved with two legalities she spoke about in a previous career in the context of the children’s referendum and bilateral adoption agreements. These are things I spoke about in this committee before. I have asked most witnesses if they would favour the possibility of us getting to a situation where we have bilateral agreements. My question then concerns whether we may need to have an additional international surrogacy authority or if we have such an international surrogacy section within the assisted human reproduction authority that might have the kind of staff that were referred to, such as social workers and guardians ad litem. I refer to that helping to progress these legal bilateral agreements. I say this because we all appreciate that international surrogacy needs to be regulated for, because leaving it unregulated, as Mr. Vaughn spoke about in the context of places in the US, leaves this process completely open. Therefore, we need regulations of some description. The question is how we do that in a way that best protects the interests of children and also protects surrogates and all the parents. While this is a major endeavour, if this is the right way to do it, then perhaps we need to examine this aspect.

My second question for Ms Justice O'Hanlon concerns what she has said regarding us taking the best aspects from best practices abroad in this regard. I am a big believer in that. I come from the corporate world myself, so I strongly believe there is no need to reinvent the wheel. If an à la cartemenu were to be created for us to take bits from, what would Ms Justice O'Hanlon recommend this committee to look at?

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. If the witnesses were to create an àla cartemenu for us to choose from, what would they recommend? Are there other areas the committee should be looking at? I am very cognisant of the fact that we cannot regulate beyond Ireland. The witnesses were quite eloquent when they said it is not up to the courts to legislate. It is also not up to this committee or this Oireachtas to legislate internationally but I am flabbergasted by the systems in Canada and the United States of America, where there are different regulations and laws between states, never mind between countries or continents. I ask our international legal experts who have gone through surrogacy to comment on how we navigate that because it seems to me to be a huge challenge.