Professor Deirdre Madden:

My view is that we should avoid that. We should not put our heads in the sand and say surrogacy is not happening. Surrogacy is happening in Ireland. It is happening by people going abroad and trying to bring their children back. That is not an optimal situation. We should face the facts that people are going to engage in this practice and we should regularise it and make sure the rights and interests of everybody are protected.

The Senator also referred to the birth mother bonding with the child and so on. I am not an expert in that area. I am here as a legal expert. However, I know it exceptionally rare for a surrogate mother to want to keep the child after birth. In the studies that have been done, it is estimated that the birth mother changes her mind and wants to retain custody of the child after birth in only 1% of surrogacy cases. That is because surrogate mothers, particularly where they are not genetically related to the child, do not feel and never consider the child to be theirs. They consider they are carrying a child for another couple and, therefore, they never feel that bond, that they want to be recognised as the legal mother, or that they want to have custody of the child because they feel it to be somebody else's child. Therefore, it is exceptionally rare for a surrogate mother to want to keep the child after birth. It can happen but it only happens in 1% of cases.

The Senator asked whether people go abroad, as I suggested, to avail of a more favourable legal regime. That is my understanding. He said perhaps it is because of cost reasons. I have no evidence of that. My evidence is that people go abroad because of the certainty and predictability of the outcome of the surrogacy arrangement, which is that they will be recognised as the legal parents of their child.