Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Thinking that it may be something that should be looked at in three years is simply to keep an open mind in the same way that we have numerous amendments on Report Stage that came out of amendments tabled by Deputies Cullinane, Shortall and others and the Committee Stage debate. I am trying to do this in a collaborative approach. That is the only reason I am referencing that any of these issues could be looked at. I also want to acknowledge that there is no perfectly right answer to any of this so we need to be open to that. We need to be open to the fact that some of the things we are doing with the best of intentions may not transpire in the way we had hoped. I am just trying to keep an open mind. What we are doing here is following the Verona Principles, which were broadly accepted by all of us and certainly by the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy. Essentially, these relate to the non-enforceability of the surrogacy agreement, which the Verona Principles state as very important and provide that the consent of the surrogate through all phases is important. That is the principle we are going on. It is not a perfect process. It is an unusual situation. It is currently in law and the proposal we are using is the current established process that appears to work. It may not work perfectly in all circumstances and I absolutely take the Deputy's point that for the intending parents it could lead to anxiety because the agreement of the surrogate mother is required. I fully accept that. However, the principles we are going on are the established Verona Principles and the established process in Irish law at the moment. I want to keep an open mind to the fact that this is in accordance with the principles and with established practice here and we should keep an open mind to seeing how it will have transpired in three years.

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