Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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83. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide an update on when the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022 will be brought back before Dáil Éireann for its next Stage; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52374/22]

Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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I have a very simple question about what is a complicated Bill. When will the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022 be brought back before us on Committee Stage? It has been a number of months since we had the Second Stage debate. Given the announcements that were made in the budget on IVF treatment, which were most welcome, I would appreciate some clarity on when the Bill is going to come back to us.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his ongoing advocacy in getting the Bill across the line as quickly as possible. The Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022 passed Second Stage in the Dáil in March, as he will be aware, and was referred to the Oireachtas Select Committee on Health for Committee Stage. The legislation encompasses the regulation, for the first time in this country, of a wide range of assisted human reproduction, AHR, practices. It is important legislation. The published Bill provides for domestic altruistic surrogacy, but not the regulation of surrogacy arrangements undertaken in other jurisdictions. However, we have the report of the Special Oireachtas Joint Committee on International Surrogacy. The Ministers for Justice, and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and I met immediately after that committee provided its report, and we asked our officials to come back to us as a matter of urgency with options and draft legislation on the recommendations. What I want to do is to have a comprehensive set of amendments for Committee Stage that reflect the surrogacy recommendations insofar as Government decides on those. I would like it to be done by the end of the year. That is what we are trying to achieve. There is ongoing engagement at ministerial and departmental level on that. As the Deputy will be aware, besides the surrogacy amendments, the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill is important in and of itself. I want that Bill through all Stages in this Dáil session. There are many reasons for that, one of which is IVF. We will move to the provision of publicly-funded IVF for the first time next year. I am talking to our own HSE fertility clinics about hiring the new staff to provide all of those new services. To do that, the sector must be regulated. I want the Bill through all Stages in this session, of which there are probably eight weeks left. I would also like as broad an inclusion of the surrogacy recommendations on Committee Stage as possible.

Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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That is a welcome response. As I said, the announcement in the budget of the first publicly-funded IVF treatment in the country is a landmark announcement. We need to see that happen. The nature of this area impacts on people who very much have time on their minds. Every Dáil session that goes by is a six-month period in people's lives. The Minister knows what I am saying. We are also hearing an increasingly coherent and strong voice coming from practitioners and medics in this area. I know that they have engaged with the Minister and have sent position papers to him, as they have to Opposition spokespeople. They have set out a wide range of recommendations on surrogacy and posthumous reproduction and on ensuring that the primary legislation does not restrict in any way, through its language, the development or use of ever-changing and ever-evolving treatments. There is a lot to take on there. If we can get this done by the end of the session, it would be most welcome.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to make two points. The first is that in terms of what we want to amend, we have talked about surrogacy looking into the future, but there is also an issue about retrospective recognition, and parental recognition in respect of surrogacy arrangements undertaken prior to this Bill. That is something we have to do. I want that brought in, if at all possible, through Committee Stage amendments. There are children and parents out there today to whom we will, and must, provide that certainty around parentage. This is going to be a mechanism to do so. On the point the Deputy raised in respect of the AHR professionals group, it submitted a position paper setting out 12 recommendations. My officials have been meeting with them. Where there is agreement, we will also draft some substantial Committee Stage amendments to the AHR Bill, besides the surrogacy bit, to that end.

Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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That is welcome. It is great that the Minister's officials are meeting with them. Perhaps he can find some time in his schedule to meet with them as well at some point this session.

It would be useful for him and it would be good for the legislation itself.

It was great to hear the Minister speak to a concern I raised on Second Stage, that is, regulating parents who, in the most simple terms, are unable to give permission for a childcare provider to give Calpol to their child because they do not have that standing. I am glad this question was picked out because we need to keep the pressure up to ensure the progress of this legislation, which is complex but important. We need to get it through with the right combination of speed and detail. I think we can get that done before the new year and I hope it will be done before Christmas.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the news announced by the Minister. I was honoured to be on the Joint Committee on Surrogacy. There was a lot of work involved and we heard many families speak about their children. I am delighted the Minister is now working with other Departments to get the legislation through as soon as possible. That is important and it is good news. I also welcome that publicly funded IVF treatment will be available for the first time for families who need it. It is important that the Minister has given us a date. I am delighted he has been working with other Departments to allow for clarity.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank both Deputies. I am more than happy to meet representatives of the AHR professional group. They are having important meetings with the officials at the moment. It is a technical matter, clinically and legislatively, and they are working through that. I gather they are having a good engagement. Of course, I am very happy to meet representatives of that group.

In response to Deputy Murnane O'Connor, we are taking this on and moving it as quickly as we possibly can. I am advised that Ireland will be leading the world when this legislation is in place. The advice I have is that no other country in the world is seeking to legislate at this level. It is ethically and legislatively complex. I and the two Ministers, Deputies McEntee and O'Gorman, have asked our Departments to do what would normally take several years in several months. This is legislatively complex. We are pushing as hard as we can to get as much as into the assisted human reproduction Bill and, to Deputy Duncan Smith's point, to pass the Bill in the next eight weeks.