Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 41:

In page 67, to delete lines 18 to 26.

Under the current process, as I understand it, a child born through surrogacy would reside with his or her intending parents with the consent of the surrogate. As I am sure the Minister will be aware, Dr. Claire O'Connell has repeatedly pointed out that this is not equivalent to legal custody and puts the child in a very precarious legal position. In theory, a surrogate could change her mind repeatedly but the intending parents would still have no legal basis on which to refuse to return the child. These sections also appear to negate the genetic father's right to apply for custody of the child under the exiting provisions of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964. According to the Bill, it seems that the surrogate's consent is absolute unless she is, for example, dead or cannot be located. It is also unclear as to who would dispense with the surrogate's consent as these sections do not deal with court applications and who would enforce it. Given these uncertainties, I propose removing these sections entirely as the safest way to deal with this matter.

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