Results 41-60 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: What consultation was engaged in with fertility clinics and members of the medical profession engaged daily in treating people in this country in the area of assisted reproduction? Does the Minister know how many children are born annually through assisted reproduction by donation?

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

Alan Shatter: No matter how the Minister puts it, we are dealing with aspects of assisted reproduction that impact directly on real couples who have to come to terms with the fact that they need assistance in the area of assisted reproduction. For many couples, that is a stressful and emotional period in their lives and we should be careful not to create barriers with unintended consequences.

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

Alan Shatter: The Minister may tell me that what I have to say is relevant to a later section. My understanding of the structure of the Bill is that any parent to whom a child has been born by use of assisted reproduction by donor up to the time when the Bill becomes operative, and who wants the child to be regarded as their own, must make a court application to do so. I am talking about the...

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

Alan Shatter: May I respond? It is relevant because there is a connection between the children to whom the sections apply and the process whereby declarations of parentage are sought in the District Court. We sometimes think we have to invent wheels that have long since been invented in other countries. I do not know the exact statistics but as far as I am aware, there have been many thousands conceived...

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

Alan Shatter: I promise I will not repeat all of this.

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

Alan Shatter: To assist-----

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

Alan Shatter: One of the questions I had intended to raise was the one raised by Deputy Mac Lochlainn. There are numbers of people who would use what they describe as traditional methods to effect a pregnancy in circumstances which may not involve intercourse but which may involve a donation, particularly of sperm, which would facilitate somebody becoming pregnant. There is an issue around that and how...

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

Alan Shatter: Will the Minister respond to my questions?

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

Alan Shatter: Sure.

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...