Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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It is true that we are not creating a presumption in the legislation. One of the difficulties in this whole area, which emerges when one begins to examine it, is that there is not much in the way of statistics so it is difficult to give precise numbers. There is no legislation covering the area, and while there are EU regulations and Medical Council guidelines there are poor data because not all the clinics operating in the country provide the information to the relevant European group. We received a lot of representations on this point and it is envisaged that the couple would have an opportunity to deal with the issue retrospectively. We have built a procedure into the legislation whereby the couple can go to court to present the information and have the issue dealt with.