Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

This is not necessarily so, when we go further down the line. The best interests of the child are paramount when one examines adoptions and all those other issues that have not come to any finality. The precise information the Senator is talking about would go to the court and then a determination would be made on parentage. The court would have to make that decision. When this legislation was initiated, a plethora of other issues arose which will give rise to problems of pre-determination. We will reach these at a later stage. The power of an tArd–Chláraitheoir is there to make the required investigation, linking in to other legislation in determining parentage. I was not aware of that but the cláraitheoir cúnta here is keeping me right on the legal aspects of it. It is complicated, the permutations are there and it will end up as a legal determination by the courts.