Mr. Gearóid Kenny Moore:

I will give a quick example. Our children were born in the UK where surrogacy legislation exists. That enabled the hospital to enact certain procedures for the birth of the surrogate child, such as offering the surrogate a separate room post birth, for her recovery and a separate midwife to visit her at home. In Ireland, because there is no surrogacy legislation, the person who gives birth, no matter what the circumstances are, is the legal mother. As a result of that she is forced to stay in the hospital until her child can be discharged and is forced to stay in the general ward for recovery with the child in a crib beside her, which some surrogates are very comfortable to do but some do not want. We have already spoken to the HSE on this and they cannot and do not enact separate policies and procedures because it is simply not on the legislative books. The lack of legislation means that the surrogates are forced to take on roles in the hospital setting they often do not want to take on.