Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----of the concept that mothers are the mothers of the children to whom they give birth. The Deputy is asking if that legal relationship exists where there is not a genetic relationship and the very clear legal advice we have is that it does. We will get the Deputy a note from the Attorney General providing chapter and verse, and we can ask for a reference to the Supreme Court judgment to which the Deputy has referred. The clear position between the three Departments that have looked at the issue is that the core principle, regardless of genetic testing, applies here. The same question would exist, for example, in terms of donor-assisted human reproduction. A mother who gives birth to a child is the intending parent in that case. Is she the mother of that child even though she may not have a genetic link to him or her? She absolutely is. That is the case when she is the intending parent under donor-assisted human reproduction and when she is not the intending parent under surrogacy. We will get the Deputy a legal position in that regard.