Results 401-420 of 23,591 for speaker:Róisín Shortall

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Will the Minister prepare a note on how it will operate for the committee? At the time of the briefing, the Minister had not had sufficient engagement with the Department of Social Protection but perhaps some of that has been clarified now?

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Pardon the pun but that is the net point of the amendment. However, there are wider issues on which we have not got clarification. What about the payment of maternity benefits? Does the current entitlement to the maternity benefit remain irrespective of whether the intending parents have guardianship of the child from a couple of weeks? It is not necessarily a matter of inclusion in the...

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: I thought we were going to tease out the issue of parental order applications. This arose in an earlier grouping.

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: I will be coming back to this on Report Stage. The groupings make it difficult to get in at an early stage, so I will be making points on Report Stage on the parental order application.

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: This group of amendments relates to a fundamental issue, namely, the question of parentage. When we had the briefing with the officials a statement was made that the birth mother is regarded as the legal mother. This goes to the heart of what happens in the post-birth period and possibly for some months afterwards. On the day of the briefing, the statement was not fully challenged. It...

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Sure.

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: It is a fundamental question about the status of the child from the point of birth to the granting of a parental order. That could be quite an extended period. Who is the legal guardian in those circumstances? Who has the legal right to make decisions about the child?

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Where does that assertion come from? The Minister is saying the constitutional parental right is with the birth mother.

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: What is the basis for that claim?

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Where does that entitlement come from?

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: I am challenging it because it is the statement the officials have been making.

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: It is the basis of the provisions in this section on parentage. I am not convinced. I do not know where the principle or assertion comes from.

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: The only judicial statements in this regard are far from what has been alleged here. They set down an opposite interpretation of constitutional-----

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: What if she does not?

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: A whole lot of questions need to be answered in respect of the unknowns during that period. We are talking about things happening ideally as soon as possible and that kind of thing. The three people concerned, the birth mother and the intending parents, have joint guardianship during that interregnum, or whatever you would like to call that period, subject to the agreement of the surrogate...

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: That is exactly the reason. There is no genetic link. The surrogate carried the baby, but does that confer on her a legal right? From where does that assumption come?

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: No, it is not. It was.

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: Where has that been established?

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: I am.

Select Committee on Health: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (21 Feb 2024)

Róisín Shortall: I am contesting that point in a surrogacy situation where there is no genetic link-----