Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Over the past couple of weeks, Deputy Paul Murphy and I have probably spent a lot of time disagreeing with each other. If Deputy Murphy and I are frank, we have spent the past 20 years disagreeing with each other on many issues but there is not a single word he said just now that I cannot agree with 100%. We have to start off from this point. This legislation is so important to so many people outside this House and in it, from all parties and none, that it behoves all of us to add a genuine level of discussion of, and reflection on, what this legislation is seeking to do.

While we welcome the legislation in its current form and we will not stop it going past this Stage, it is woefully inadequate and long overdue. Even in its current form, this legislation still leaves us completely out of the European orbit and completely out of step with similar jurisdictions near us. We need to reflect deeply over the coming weeks during the debate in this House, at the committee on surrogacy and in the Seanad on what we are trying to achieve with this vitally important Bill.

The first area I will address is the costs and supports needed to have a properly funded system of IVF. We do not have any system in this State worth calling appropriate for IVF. We have a private system that very few can afford and genuinely play a part in. Far more people are more willing to take the boat or plane - a dark reference to another part of our chapter in another area of reproductive rights - to Great Britain to seek this service. We have to be honest with ourselves; we are failing the population. When I say "we" I pretty much mean all of us on this side of the House in particular. We have to ensure that we stop talking about a proper, effective, publicly funded system of IVF and just put it in place. It will require a major sacrifice, but it also requires a level of humanity that should not bring any question to the need for that sacrifice.

I mentioned costs but another area is that of the follow-up supports for those going through IVF, which includes the prospective mother and her partner but also the wider society, what happens after the child is born and the ongoing medical requirements that are needed. IVF is not necessarily a one-time go. It might take multiple chances before it is successful and it might require multiple chances for a second or third child, if that is the parents' wish. We have to look at it in that context. This is about allowing people to have the same level of equality of opportunity that so many of us simply take for granted.

The second area that this Bill simply does not address at all relates to international surrogacy. I welcome the establishment of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on International Surrogacy. It is a good thing but I will be honest that when I brought the news of the setting up of that committee to my constituents and family members of mine who had been campaigning on this issue, they were bereft. They asked why they again had to wait and why they had to wait so much longer before this is a reality. Why is it a fact that by sheer stroke of luck and so much else I do not have to go through any administration? My children are my own, no one questions it, there is no legal process and I do not have to wait three or four years before my daughter can legally be called such. Why is that different from so many other people in my life who are still not legally recognised as the parents of their children? It is utterly wrong.

I do not know the reason for the delay. I do not know whether it is an administrative delay from a certain Department, a political misunderstanding, political reluctance or, in fact, something more sinister but it is simply unacceptable. We need to see the committee that has been set up allowed to do its work comprehensively and swiftly to ensure that the next time we come at this Bill, be it on Report Stage or Committee Stage, it includes a genuine aspect relating to international surrogacy that provides those parents, Mums and Dads, Mums and Mums, Dads and Dads, and Mums or Dads the exact same rights that by sheer fluke of genetic luck I am granted and do not have to think about. These are rights that so many of us take for granted and ones for which we have to stand up for others.

Many of us have had meetings with various representative groups, many of us have sat on Zoom calls and many of us have gone out to the gates of Leinster House, but we cannot in any true sense of ourselves go back to those people and say that we have done a little of what they asked for. We have to do absolutely what they have asked for, which is quite straightforward. They have given us examples from other jurisdictions and sound legal advice. They have got assurances, certainly from Fine Gael, and I know other political parties and political representatives have given them the same assurances. We have that duty of care and that ultimate and most precious responsibility to go back to those people and say there is nothing any longer standing in the way of them being recognised as the parents of their children. We have to bring our archaic and utterly cold system, when it comes to surrogacy, up to date and to a level not just of modernity but genuine compassion.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the ongoing war in Ukraine in this context. I must credit the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice, which have worked with many families to give them the opportunity to work with their surrogates in Ukraine and to bring their children - they are their children despite what forms might state at present - home to Ireland from Ukraine. There are still a number of people in an extremely worrying situation who are trying to get their surrogates out of Ukraine to safety, not just to have their children but to avoid the violent and oppressive war that Vladimir Putin is waging. On a more practical level, since Ukraine has been the release valve for many of the inadequacies of our State's approach to surrogacy over the past decade or so, many people will now not have the opportunity that others have had over the past couple of years to go to Ukraine to get a surrogate.

We saw this before with changes in international adoption rules over a decade ago in relation to Vietnam, Thailand and Russia. The fact that the opportunity to go to Ukraine and engage a surrogate and have your own child is being removed from so many people or is being put in peril for those already in the process needs to be addressed by the Government in a realistic and compassionate way and should also motivate us to ensure this legislation and the parallel work of the committee is expedited and that we do not use this as a platform to debate other ethical or non-relevant issues. We have to do everything in our power to stand up for the promises made in the last few weeks and to address the failings over decades which were endured by so many of our brothers and sisters.

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