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

The passage of this Bill through the Dáil today is a really important landmark. It is undoubtedly very warmly welcomed by many of the campaigners seeking recognition of their parent-child relationships. Huge credit goes to those campaigners for their tireless and compelling work making the case so strongly to legislators that this issue should not slide down or off the political agenda. It is also important to acknowledge the work done by the Minister and his officials, particularly between Second and Committee Stages but also between Committee and Report Stages. It was slow going at times. It was quite complex and turgid at times but everybody stuck with it and the Bill is much better for that. Most of the aspects were fully teased out and in many respects the Bill was greatly strengthened because of that whole process.

Trying to legislate in this area has certainly raised some difficult legal and ethical issues and I want to thank the Minister and his officials for their willingness to engage on these thorny issues throughout the legislative process. Our objective was a shared one, which was to provide legal certainty for those many families, parents and children, who have been living through a very difficult period when there was such uncertainty surrounding their key relationships. Today is a very positive day in that regard.

This issue has been around for a long time.

It is 24 years since the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction was established and 19 years since its report was published. My preference would have been for us to deal with all the issues in this legislation. That turned out not to be possible. I accept the pressures with regard to other legislation which was also important and took up time.

I say a sincere thank you to the Minister and his officials for all the work involved in this. There are a great many families who today will be very much rejoicing at us getting to this point today. There is another bit to go but I hope it will be dealt with with speed. I thank all the campaigners who have done so much to get us to this point today and I hope we will get to the final hurdle before too long.

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