Results 19,101-19,120 of 19,162 for speaker:Alan Shatter

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: While I do not wish to delay the committee, perhaps the Minister will respond to the questions I asked earlier without my repeating them. If she needs me to repeat them, I am happy to so do.

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: Unless I am missing something, it appears to me that the Minister is stating that neither she nor her Department has been engaged with the fertility clinics and that they have not considered the difficulty that could arise if we move from anonymous donation to identifying donors. No assessment has been undertaken as to whether a barrier will now be erected when this comes into force and will...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: First, I will address the specific provision the Minister referenced. It is section 24(5). It provides for a period of three years from the date on which that subsection comes into operation, a gamete to which paragraph (a) of that subsection does not apply may be used, basically, in an assisted human reproduction procedure. Then it goes through a whole series of issues. The three years...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: Essentially, the Minister is now informing us that as a result of the additional provisions introduced into the legislation - which effectively prevent the use of anonymous donation - those provisions that will facilitate identifying and confirming the parentage of the thousands of children born through assisted reproduction will not be brought into operation for a minimum of one year and...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: In the context of these matters being delayed for more than a year, I am conscious that so far much of my focus has been on heterosexual couples. Effectively, however, what is proposed means that gay couples who have had children through assisted reproduction will be left in a position whereby, for a continuing and indefinite period, the parentage of their children will not be capable of...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: This requires that the Minister for Health is to establish a register and details the information that is to go into it. How is it envisaged this is going to work in practice? This is relevant to a discussion needed on section 32. Is this a register that the Minister for Health will provide? Will some section in the Department operate it?

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: It appears from what the Minister is saying that it is never envisaged that this provision will come into force in its current form. Whatever legislation the Department of Health is working on that might get published in 2016, 2017 or 2018 will provide for the creation of a regulatory authority in the area of assisted reproduction fertility clinics. It again illustrates why this aspect of...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: The point I am making is that the Bill as drafted means that decisions on this, under section 33, will be made by the Minister for Health. However, we are now being told they will not be made by the Minister for Health but by a regulatory authority that has not yet been created and for which there is no legislation but is currently in the mind of the Minister. I am again making the point...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: We are appreciative but we want to avoid creating difficulties.

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: I want to raise a different issue under section 32. This section provides for two things: for information to be given either to a child over 18 or to the parents of a child under 18 concerning matters recorded in the register. However, it also provides in subsection (2) that the donor of a sperm or ovum, and it will more frequently be sperm than ova because of the way reproductive medicine...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: I have concerns as to how this will work in practice and what transparency, if any, there will be in the process. There is obviously an interaction between subsection (2) and subsection (3), in that under subsection (2) the Minister must within 12 weeks from the date on which notice was sent release to the child the information requested unless the relevant donor makes representations to the...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: The only issue is that the legislation does not use the words "exceptional circumstances". It uses the term "well-being". I am very conscious of, and I want to come back to this, the desirability where possible of facilitating individuals born through assisted reproduction or through adoption to trace origins, but one has to have a robust and coherent procedure and there has to be a...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: I do not wish to prolong this unnecessarily, but if there is a range of factors to be considered, they should be detailed in the legislation. If the decision is based on "well-being", there is a need to clarify what "sufficient reasons" means or can the Minister simply say that, based on his or her perception of the well-being of the donor or the well-being of the child, he or she will or...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: A Minister cannot secretly communicate to a court the things he or she has relied on to make a decision. If an appeal is going to be filed in the Circuit Court there has to be some ground for it. One objects to the original decision for specified reasons. If one does not know the reasoning behind a decision one cannot state the grounds of an appeal. It does not make sense.

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: Chairman, are we breaking for lunch?

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: I wish to give the Chairman notice that I intend to raise a range of issues in respect of the section.

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: I want to raise some matters. This seems to be the first section dealing with the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964 in the Bill and it seems to also be partially a definitions section. I want to just repeat something that I said in the Dáil on Second Stage. I believe it is good legislative practice that we try to keep what is a fairly complex area as legislatively clear as possible. I...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: This is a definitional issue around what the concept of guardianship means.

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: I am quite happy to discuss it under section 41.

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage (5 Mar 2015)

Alan Shatter: With due respect, to say that makes no sense whatsoever. I am sorry to phrase it that way. If the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964 remained exactly as it was with no amendments, there would still be a need for us to finally have a definition of these concepts. They are defined worldwide in legislation dealing with the custody, care and upbringing of children. In my view, the entire Act...