Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are two more Wicklow Deputies to speak. I warmly welcome the opportunity to discuss the upcoming surrogacy legislation following the work of the Special Oireachtas Joint Committee on International Surrogacy. I acknowledge the enormous efforts over many years of many advocates and the surrogacy groups, some of whom are with us today in the Visitors Gallery. They are all very welcome.

It has been my great honour and pleasure to meet with parents and their beautiful children as well as many others who want nothing more than to have children of their own. I have listened carefully to their stories of their journeys to parenthood, the struggles, the costs, the heartache, the hope and in many cases the unbridled joy of becoming parents to their wonderful children. To these parents I say they must have full recognition and rights, under the law, as the parents of their children. Their children deserve, must have and will have, the full protections of parental recognition and associated rights. That is what our new legislation does. The legislation we are finalising provides a full retrospective route for parents and for their children. This is what we are finalising to bring to the Joint Committee on Health. This is what will be available via the courts when this legislation is passed later this year.

I have instructed my officials to ensure that retrospective parental orders do not require the establishment of the new authority, which will take some time. They are engaging with the Attorney General to do everything possible to make sure the legislation is drafted to that effect.

To those looking to become parents, this legislation will in the first instance regulate and advance assisted human reproduction services. In parallel with the legislation we are rolling out an entirely new national network of fertility hubs, new assisted human reproduction services and implementing, later this year, for the first time State funding for in vitro fertilisation, IVF. The legislation will also regulate domestic as well as international surrogacy, which of course is the main focus of today’s discussion.

We can all agree that the undertaking of surrogacy arrangements in other jurisdictions raises complex practical issues to be addressed. To consider these, the Government agreed to establish the special committee in February last year. The members put in long hours and the result of their efforts was a balanced, thoughtful and important piece of work. I take this opportunity to thank the members of the committee for their work and to thank the Chair of the committee, Deputy Whitmore, for her work in particular.

The committee published its final report in July, which includes a total of 32 recommendations. An extensive piece of work was then carried out by the three line Departments in respect of this. Ultimately, last December the recommendation to Government from myself, the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O’Gorman, was to accept, either fully or partially, 30 of the report’s 32 recommendations. The rationale for not including the other two recommendations stems from additional protections we wanted in place for the surrogate and intending parents, in regard to ensuring court hearings can be scheduled and secondly ensuring all who are children eligible for parental orders get the benefits of these orders in a reasonable period of time. I have met with the representative groups to discuss the amendments, and discuss the vast majority of the recommendations which we are taking on, those we are not and the rationale for that. I am happy to say there was broad agreement as to the approach that has been adopted.

I also acknowledge additional issues have been raised with me, including concerns raised by LGBT Ireland, Irish Families Through Surrogacy, other individuals and other groups. To them I say that I have listened very carefully to what they said. We discussed the concerns with officials and these are being addressed to the greatest extent possible through the final stages of the drafting process.

It is worth noting that legislation as complex as this can take a long time, sometimes several years, to work its way through the system. Indeed I am bringing legislation through final stages at the moment that my Wicklow colleague, the Minister for Justice, Deputy Harris, started many years previously. That legislation was not as complex as that which we are dealing with here. The Government wanted to make sure that this did not become a multiyear process following the committee's report. To that end I wrote to the Attorney General before Christmas to request the prioritisation of the formal drafting process. I am happy to be able to report to the House that legislative drafting that might at times have taken years is instead being done in a matter of months. I must acknowledge the huge efforts being made by officials in all three line Departments and the efforts being made by drafters and by legal advisers in the Attorney General’s office to make sure this happens.

As of this morning officials were on version eight of the legislative amendments. The version I have with me is 7C. That will give a sense of just how much work is going into making sure that this legislation is right. I am confident that when published, the amendments will reflect the proposals put forward by the committee in so far as it is possible to do.

In regard to timing, which is one of the questions Deputy Whitmore raised and that many of the groups we met in the past hour raised as well, it is my intention that this work will be finalised, that we will seek and hopefully secure Government agreement on the final Bill and on the surrogacy amendments and that I will send all of that to the Joint Committee on Health for consideration, for scheduling for Committee Stage, during this Dáil term, during the summer term, before the Dáil rises in mid-July.

The scheduling of Committee Stage which will most likely involve substantial proposed amendments - there may be Opposition amendments and I am certainly bringing in amendments - is ultimately a matter for the Oireachtas. There are amendments to 11 parts of the Bill and 134 pages of legislation as it currently stands. In effect we are bringing in amendments that are of the scale and complexity of a full Bill in and of themselves. It is up to the Joint Committee on Health to decide when it is going to schedule Committee Stage. Nonetheless, it is my hope that the Joint Committee on Health will be able to find time in what is a very busy schedule for it in order that we can have the committee hearings, I can bring it back to the Dáil for Report and Final Stages, I can bring it through the Seanad, and we can get this passed through all stages of the Oireachtas and to the President during this Dáil term.

We cannot guarantee that because there are many moving parts and many different groups involved, so it is not in my gift to guarantee it. It is the absolute determination of me, the Minister, Deputy Harris, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman and of Government that we do so and I think there is broad political support across both Houses for this. We are determined to have this with the President by the time the Houses rise after the summer term.

I am not aware of any other country that has attempted to provide such a bespoke and comprehensive legislative solution, including the incorporation of a pre-conception approval model, to issues arising from its own citizens engaging in surrogacy arrangements in other jurisdictions. In much of the rest of Europe and further afield, legislators, academics and others are looking with keen interest at us right now, at what we are planning and at what our legislation will do. This is an area we are pioneering. In the UK, the law commission last month published recommendations for reforming surrogacy laws in a report that took five years. I imagine that legislation will take some time.

Our finalised new surrogacy amendments will be significantly expanded from and much more detailed than both the broad recommendations in the committee report and the proposals approved by Government before Christmas, as we turn this into the final legislation. I very much looking forward to passing this legislation, both for the original elements concerning assisted human reproduction and the new elements concerning international surrogacy. I finish by again recognising the work of the committee, of advocates and of officials in getting us to this place. These parents and these children deserve full parental recognition. That is exactly what we are going to do.

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