Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies very much. I will come to some of the substance now but on a procedural note, we have moved into a discussion on surrogacy. My understanding was that we were going to try to do the assisted human reproduction bits in this session and then move to surrogacy in the next session. These are many of the pressing questions, however. I suggest that I give some short answers now, but I propose that we arrange another informal briefing session in the Department covering the various issues we have discussed already, such as the posthumous issues and this issue as well. We have been dealing with and teasing these out for a long period. In fact, exactly the issues members have just raised are one of the reasons it has taken so long. There are constitutional issues here. It goes right to the core of the surrogacy piece. I propose a brief answer now and we will then have a briefing in the Department of Health. The officials have taken note of all of these questions. We will also get a briefing document together and then we will get into the specifics of it on the next Committee Stage meeting, if members are agreeable to that.