Ms Geraldine Luddy:

It is not the same as surrogacy but when we look at adoption, we have the Hague Convention where something is being done at an international level for countries. We do not have that on either assisted human reproduction or surrogacy. We can only legislate for what takes place in this State.

It is being examined at a European level. The Commission has formed a group. The WHO is also looking at it because it is a difficulty, particularly for commercial surrogacy. We all will have heard of countries, such as India, where there are many issues with women who are put forward as surrogates. On the other hand we are aware that there are problems around it, because we have a system where couples go abroad, come back to Ireland after having a surrogacy arrangement abroad and need to get passports and register citizenship for the children. We hope there will be some more European level jurisdiction legislation on it but at present there is not.