Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for Health, the Minister. Deputy McEntee, and the officials in both their Departments who worked on this, the Office of the Attorney General, the Oireachtas health committee, my fellow members of the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy, which was a special committee put in place to look at this, especially its Chair, Deputy Whitmore, and my colleague, Senator Mary Seery Kearney. Most important, I thank the families, campaigners and groups who kept this on the news agenda, the political agenda and the legislative agenda. To do so they had to share really personal stories, personal parts of their lives, and their lived experience, and they should not have had to do that. However, because they did, after the passage of this Bill, Ireland will be a better and more inclusive place. This Bill is a recognition not only of their familial rights, but of all their hard work and dedication to this cause. I thank them for that.

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