Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

to delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:

"Dáil Éireann resolves that the Children and Family Relationships (Amendment) Bill 2023 be deemed to be read a second time this day nine months, so as to allow sufficient time for commencement of the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022, in line with the principles of this Bill.”.

I welcome this evening's debate on this Private Members' Bill. I would like to start by thanking Deputy Bacik and the Labour Party for their work on this Bill. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to those advocates, some of whom are here this evening, who have been very involved in the drafting of the Government’s Bill and who have looked at various things to be included, including the Children and Family Relationships Act and other areas around domestic surrogacy, international surrogacy, parentage here in Ireland, assisted human reproduction, AHR, procedures and others.

This Bill raises important issues about the regulation of donor-assisted human reproduction and seeks to extend the circumstances where intending parents can receive a declaration of parentage. The Bill aims to include donor-assisted procedures that take place abroad; where the child is born abroad; and where the procedure takes place in a non-clinical setting.

I take, and the Government takes, these matters very seriously. These are the focus of changes I am making to the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015, which I am introducing by way of Committee and Report Stage amendments, along with the retrospective elements to surrogacy. These are in recognition of some very important things. First, there are children in our Republic this evening whose parents do not enjoy full parental rights. We are going to rectify that for the parents and for the children.

While there will be differences of opinion on some of the details on the AHR Bill which we are bringing through, I think it is broadly supported around the House. Retrospective declaration of parentage is something that will affect hundreds of families in this country. We will make sure they have a route this year to full parental rights. Deputy Bacik has been clear in the Bill and in her contribution that as we go forward, we must put in place laws and regulations so that those rights of parentage for the child and for the parents can be recognised and vindicated. I agree. They are essential.

We are looking to do this through the Government Bill which is on Committee Stage. We discussed it on Committee Stage for several hours only yesterday. As well as introducing comprehensive regulation on assisted human reproduction, establishing a new regulator in the area, and providing for domestic and international surrogacy, I will be making a number of important changes to the 2015 Act to which the Deputy referred. The amendments to the Bill will extend the circumstances under which a retrospective declaration of parentage can be granted by the courts. It will do this by removing the requirement that an unknown donor is used, replacing it with a consent-based mechanism, whereby the donor will consent to the grant of parentage. This will address the legal issues raised by the use of a known donor prior to commencement of the Act. Following commencement, the consent signed by the donor prior to a procedure includes recognition that they are not the legal parent of any child born as a result of the procedure. We have a retrospective solution and a forward-looking solution as well.

The amendments will also allow for a retrospective declaration of parentage where the procedure took place in a non-clinical setting. This is something the advocacy groups asked for and is a change to which the Deputy referred. Critically it does this whether the setting was in Ireland or abroad. It recognises that such procedures took place at a time when there was no legal framework in place. The amendments will also clarify that an intending parent cannot be considered a donor. This is particularly relevant for reciprocal IVF. It makes clear provisions for citizenship for children born as a result of donor-assisted human reproduction procedures that come within the scope of the Act, where at least one of the intending parents is an Irish citizen. These are all critical and I think we are strongly agreed on these measures. The Deputy mentioned several of them in her opening contribution.

As we discussed at the select committee yesterday, work is ongoing, including further engagement with members of the health committee. I double-checked during the Deputy’s contribution that the Labour Party is not represented on the Select Committee on Health. We are inviting the committee to some in-depth further engagement and I will extend an invitation to Deputy Duncan Smith. That is probably something that should have happened previously.

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