Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I have a number of questions. These principles are a very useful guideline for the future regulation of surrogacy. In Ireland we have had no regulation at all so we have a lot of families that are in limbo. I ask the witnesses to comment on dealing with the regulation of families formed through surrogacy retrospectively who are living in Ireland at the moment.

International surrogacy is an incredibly complex area. As the witnesses outlined, no country has actually taken on board the Verona Principles. At the moment in Ireland we have no regulation and obviously that leaves a lot of people at risk of exploitation by bad actors. Is any form of regulation better than the current situation we have? If, for example, we could not implement 100% of the Verona Principles, is getting to 80% or 90% better than the current non-regulation of surrogacy?