Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I reluctantly raise this issue on the floor of the House because of the inability and failure of parents of a beautiful baby daughter who was born to them last September with the help of a surrogate mother in India to get a passport from the Department of Foreign Affairs. There are other children in this situation as well. It is my strong view that there is nothing to stop the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Minister for Foreign Affairs from issuing a passport to that child and to other children born through surrogacy. It is noticeable that when this child was born in India, the Irish embassy in Delhi referred to the child's citizenship as Irish on the emergency travel document. There is no reason that should not continue.

The key issue in determining the issuing of passports - Mr. Nugent, an official in the Department of Foreign Affairs, pointed out this in correspondence - is whether the child is an Irish citizen and whether the requisite consents of the guardians have been given. On the question of citizenship, the Department of Foreign Affairs says - I know this from having been a Minister for Foreign Affairs and there is precedent for this - that one may be able to establish that the child is an Irish citizen by providing satisfactory DNA evidence. In this case and in other cases, very strong and cast iron DNA validation has been provided. The parents have secured the DNA evidence from the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin, verified by St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, and they have gone public on this and this is a matter of public record.

The Department of Foreign Affairs says in regard to guardianship that the Minister shall, before issuing a passport to a child, be satisfied on reasonable grounds that each person who is a guardian of the child consents to the issuing of a passport to the child. The consent by the mother to the issuing of a passport was full, free and informed in this case. The parents have signed the notarised affidavits from the birth mother to that effect.

Despite all of that, the passport has been refused and I know the Minister is aware of this situation. I would have been aware of another situation when I was Minister where I gave instructions to the officials to issue a passport and I received assurances earlier that a passport would be issued in that case. Subsequently, it was brought to my attention that a passport has not been issued. I had another meeting with officials and was told that the Attorney General had issues with the matter and referred to issues that had emerged from the commission on assisted human reproduction. I do not think that the issuing of passports should be used as a vehicle either to surface, or become a catalyst for dealing with, issues that came out of the commission on assisted human reproduction, which are complex and which the Oireachtas had before it in the context of an all-party committee and which it did not progress.

There is nothing in any of the correspondence I have seen or the responses I have received - I have written to the Minister on this - that cites any law preventing the Minister from issuing a passport and using his discretion to issue a passport to the child. This is important to the fundamental rights of the child in terms of the right of the child to travel, to access medical treatment and to take away the worries and concerns that parents have. In some cases because of work and other issues, people have to travel to other countries from Ireland and back again.

I am disappointed with the responses I have received so far. I have great respect for the officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs, having worked there, but I find the obduracy in regard to this issue perplexing and difficult. I know there is precedent for issuing passports on the provision of DNA evidence. That is a fact. I cannot understand why that cannot be invoked in regard to these cases.

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