Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

She is the gestational mother. The mother is the person who delivered the child. A father is not a father; he is a person until paternity has been determined. Save in exceptional circumstances, the assumption is that the man is the father if he is married to the mother unless that man relinquishes that right. He has to be married to the woman ten months prior to that and this is the big issue. It will come up in section 22. There is no assumption in law that the man is the father, save that he is married to the mother unless he relinquishes that right.