Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 December 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

General Scheme of Assisted Human Reproduction Bill 2017: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Photo of Kate O'ConnellKate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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To ensure nothing comes out of the committee that is not what I said, or what any of us said, I am not talking about making everybody happy. I never mentioned anything about making people happy. There was a suggestion that some of the recent referendums were based on providing happiness for adults. I fundamentally believe in children being reared in a loving environment, however that family is made up. People who adopt children or who have children are fundamental to our society. As a medical professional for women and men who have undergone in vitro fertilisation and dealt with the heartbreak of multiple miscarriages and time ticking by, I would not like it to be put out as a view of the committee that anybody would abduct a child to satisfy his or her inner need.

It is about children's welfare, the family unit and protecting children in the future. It is interesting that we have had a history of eldest daughters' children being passed off as the mother's, and various people who have purported to lead celibate lives having children and their identity not being known. We have a long, hard history of hiding the identity of children within the family unit with no records. As Professor Madden said, approximately one in ten children in the marital environment are not the child of the father in the relationship. It is high time, as it often seems to be in the committee, that we stood back and accepted the reality of what is going on. Our job is not to legislate for happiness but rather to legislate to ensure people, that is, children and families, are protected. We should have sympathy for people's situations that some of us, thank God, have never had to witness personally.