Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 4, between lines 11 and 12, to insert the following: “Report on surrogacy leave

7. The Minister shall prepare and lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas on introducing paid surrogacy leave for parents of children born by surrogacy, and the report shall be presented to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection within 6 months of the passing of this Act.”.

Regarding paid surrogacy leave, I understand the Minister may put this to another Department again but as a wider point, there is a unique role that the Department of social protection plays in terms of the funding of all these different kinds of measures, and that is at the heart of many of these amendments and the different reports I want to get to. It is about having an understanding of some of the data behind them, some of the expenditures associated with them and the people who will be affected. The point of this particular amendment is to understand the data from a surrogacy leave perspective, which is something I wish to see put forward in general.