Dr. Lydia Bracken:

I thank the Senator for the question. I will start with the point on commercial surrogacy. A very careful and nuanced discussion on commercial surrogacy is needed to begin with because it raises many different issues, as was mentioned. First, we need to agree on what we mean when we talk about commercial surrogacy because, when we look around the world, we see that practices that one country might regard as purely altruistic might be regarded by another as commercial. That is the very first thing we must do if we are going to talk about commercial surrogacy. A useful starting point before we even get to that stage is to decide how to ensure that surrogacy is ethical. How do we ensure that the human rights of all stakeholders have been protected in the surrogacy arrangement? That comes down to safeguards to ensure that free and informed advice has been given, that there is a balance of power between all parties and, very importantly, that the rights of the child have been upheld throughout the process. It is more useful to focus on those aspects first and to decide what we mean by ethical surrogacy and then to get into the conversation on what we mean by commercial surrogacy and whether those other aspects can be safeguarded in whatever type of process we are talking about. Our starting point needs to be a focus on whether the process is ethical and how to ensure that it is.

With regard to the point on sanctions, I fully agree with the points Professor O'Mahony made on awarding guardianship instead of parentage in certain circumstances. The points made in the report balance the interests of all of the stakeholders in the process and provide us with something of a compromise that allows us not to penalise parents in a way that ultimately penalises the child and that provides a solution that actually works and is respectful of the reality of the child's life.