David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As Chairman of the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, I am delighted to take part in this debate. I am speaking because of changes to procedural reforms in the Oireachtas whereby Ministers are now required to provide committees with drafts of all legislation, or else give a good reason why they do not do so on Second Stage.

I acknowledge the presence of Deputy Mac Lochlainn who is a colleague on the committee I chair. He works extraordinarily hard and has been challenged, as I have been, by much of the legislation coming through.

Mention has been made on and off about the delay in this Bill, but it is probably one of the most complex pieces of legislation I have seen in my time here. I wish to acknowledge and compliment the enormous work put into this complex and serious Bill by the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, as well as by his officials.

I note that surrogacy has been taken out of the legislation and even though my committee did some work on it, it has now moved to the health area. I am sure my colleagues there will examine the work we did at the time.

There have been 36 cases of pre-legislative scrutiny from March 2011 to October 2014, 11 of which were undertaken by the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. They have all been quite complex and time consuming. The committee has held 102 meetings in that time and well over 400 people have given evidence there.

Pre-legislative scrutiny is a major reform but unfortunately it occurs down in the dungeons where no one hears us or sees us. Sometimes one might as well be on the far side of the moon for all people care. At the same time, however, the committees do produce important work. It gives an opportunity for the public who are experts and for members to make their views known. Because a Bill has not been formally drafted, it affords an opportunity to the Minister, officials and our colleagues to have a major input into draft legislation at that stage. It is the biggest reform I have ever seen, but it has gone unnoticed. People talk about Oireachtas reform, but pre-legislative scrutiny is the biggest one because it has a massive impact on the legislative process. That is our major function, so we can have a huge impact on legislation as it is being drafted and put together. When it comes before the Dáil it is richer for that process and a lot more information is available to Deputies if they wish to avail of it, as well as reading the expert reports.

The Bill before us was published on 30 January 2014 and was referred to the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality shortly thereafter. On 6 February 2014, we sought submissions and allowed people up to 28 February to send submissions to us. We received 38 quite detailed and lengthy submissions, many of them from experts in the field who were concerned and had an awful lot to say.

We had day-long public hearings on Wednesday, 9 April 2014. I thank all of those who made submissions and who subsequently engaged with the committee. Some 15 individuals and groups engaged with the committee that day, with 20 individuals speaking there. As Deputy Mac Lochlainn will recall, we were at it all day and it was quite complex.

The committee completed its report and laid it before the Houses on 29 May 2014. The report, and two others, were publicly launched on 10 July last year. A lot of work went into it. Our report made 11 strong recommendations and I am glad to note that most of those have been taken on board by the Minister and her Department. That proves the point that the committee's work is extremely useful and valuable.

Some of the recommendations have been moved to the Department of Health, including the one on surrogacy. The committee's report recommended that no sanction should be imposed for breach of provisions in the Bill on parents that would be against the interests of the child. In particular, children should not be denied a legal identity because of some breach of the relevant provisions relating to surrogacy arrangements.

As regards identity, the right to find out who one's genetic parents are has been taken on board. When a child reaches the age of 18, he or she can discover who their genetic parents are. That is very important. In all of this, and even in reports in recent days, I have been struck by how fast science is progressing and developing. Maybe some of it is not going the right way, but it is advancing. We have seen reports of three genetic parents being possible. We have also seen reports of the possibility of people being cloned from two people of the same sex, for instance. That is the most recent example I have seen. These areas are currently unregulated.

I am glad the surrogacy legislation is coming forward, which is not before time. That is extremely complicated, as is this legislation.

We commented on the child's right to identity in head 10 of the heads of the Bill and I am glad it is included in the Bill as published, especially the genetic identity.

There has been much mention tonight of guardians acting jointly on medical consent. Many colleagues are concerned about the rights of fathers. The heads of the Bill originally specified that parents should live together for 12 months. We actually recommended that it should be nine months and three months afterwards. I welcome that is now included in the Bill. We had representations on an issue that is happening more and more now where parents have a good relationship but do not live together. However, because they do not live together they miss out on this aspect. It is a difficult one. I know of parents who have a good relationship and because they cannot afford their own house at the moment they live with their parents. What does one do in those circumstances?

On the automatic guardianship, Deputy Catherine Murphy quite rightly pointed out that if there is automatic guardianship, what about the person who is a rapist or is in some other way undesirable? That is something we have to take into account. I am not sure if automatic guardianship is the way to go. If people live together for three months after a child is born and nine months before, the chances are that the man is the father and if they stay together for three months afterwards the chances are that they will have a commitment to each other which is in the best interests of the child.

The best interests of the child have been mentioned again and again. In head 7.9 of the heads of the Bill that we got, the views of the child were crucial. A number of witnesses before the committee asked for clarity on how and where the views of the child were to be ascertained? They also asked about the age and maturity of the child. It is very difficult to put that into legislation, but we need to bear it in mind. We also need to bear in mind that we are still awaiting the referendum to be decided in the courts as to where that is to go. However, we said that greater clarity was needed on the provisions in head 32 concerning the right of the child to be heard and that should be implemented in practice without imposing undue burden on the child, which is important.

We proposed that the Bill should be amended to allow for adoption by a single stepparent. I have read the Bill twice at this stage and there is a lot in it. As far as I can see, that provision is contained. So a birth parent does not have to relinquish rights where civil parents jointly adopt.

I mentioned the views and rights of the child to participate. That is amending the Guardians of Infants Act 1964. The Bill refers to 24 pieces of legislation. Most of them are very complex and most of them have been amended by the Bill.

It has been suggested that the terms used with respect to guardianship, custody and access should be changed. In 2005 the Law Reform Commission proposed replacing them with "parental responsibility, day-to-day care and contact." It maintained that the terms "guardianship, custody and access" were archaic and that we should consider more up-to-date terminology that people might understand better and might not be put off by the rather archaic terminology.

Some colleagues have said they will introduce amendments to the legislation when it comes before the committee shortly. We look forward to addressing those amendments. I am happy that the pre-legislative scrutiny has been taken into account and that most of the recommendations we made have been incorporated into the Bill.

I commend the Bill to the House and wish it well on its way.

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