Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank everyone for speaking to us and especially Ms Merrigan, Ms Cohalan and Mr. Kenny Moore for being such fantastic advocates for their children and their families. There has been a huge amount of information, with much to take in and digest and I am relatively new to this issue.

I have a couple of questions. The first relates to what Professor O'Mahony was talking about, namely, what could be referred to as funnelling and coming back to this issue of parentage versus guardianship. Dr. Bracken mentioned in her opening statement that one of the things the regulation must ensure is that a child does not experience discrimination due to the circumstances of his or her conception. Does she foresee that if there were a differentiation between guardianship and parentage, that would meet the threshold of discrimination from her perspective or does she think it would still be allowable to be that funnelling, as it were, towards domestic surrogacy?

We were talking about the right to identity and the identifiable donors. In real-life experiences, do surrogates tend to want to have that connection going forward? I imagine there would be quite a few instances where they go through that parenting journey or that journey. I am not sure of the terminology so I hope I am not offending anyone. Once the baby is born, is there usually an expectation that relationship would end for some of them? Is it difficult to find someone who would consent to being identifiable and giving her information to a child? I am wondering if that could be a difficult criterion to meet.

The parents today have been fantastic advocates. Are there any advocacy groups that represent surrogates or are there children born from surrogacy who are old enough to be advocates for themselves and to tell us their story? I am just wondering whether their stories are available to be heard either in Ireland or internationally.