Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 11:

In page 43, line 11, after “expenses” to insert “, and any net loss of income,”.

On foot of amendments submitted by Deputies Shortall, Cullinane and Kenny on Committee Stage, I am introducing this amendment to speak to the issues they raised. Essentially this will bring in an allowance for net loss of income to be included as part of the permitted reasonable expenses incurred by a donor. This provision, which is brought in through amendment No. 11 to allow donors to be paid for a net loss of income is particularly required in respect of, for instance, egg donors who are more likely to take time off and need to take time off from their jobs to complete the donation process.

Amendment No. 85 makes a similar change to the Children and Family Relationships Act. The other two amendments are on foot of Committee Stage amendments from Deputy Cullinane. Again, the word “net” is being added before loss of income in the context of reasonable expenses incurred by a surrogate mother. This will allow for aspects such as social protection payments or income tax liabilities to be taken into account when seeking to calculate a surrogate mother’s potential loss of income. Again, it makes it a stronger scheme and hopefully reflects the amendments and the discussion that we had on Committee Stage.

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