Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the High Court judgment today under which the genetic parents of twins born to a surrogate mother were deemed to be the legal parents and the genetic mother was entitled to have her name on the birth certificate. I think this was the right judgment in this case, but the whole issue is not straightforward. What if it had been a donor? Who then would be deemed the legal mother? It is absolutely past time that we had a debate on assisted human reproduction in the House. Certainly, we need legislation in this area. Each year in Ireland thousands of couples seek help in the area of assisted reproduction, and therefore it is timely. The legal judgment will push the issue on. I am keen to hear from the Leader on this issue in his response.

Like Senator Aideen Hayden, I was absolutely disgusted to hear that Ulster Bank is maintaining that this year it will foreclose on 1,000 homes. It has stated that it is time to get real. I will put what is real to the bank: those couples, families and individuals qualified for a mortgage pre-recession. They had incomes, higher incomes in some cases, and since then they may have lost them or had them reduced. The bank is expecting those couples and individuals to meet the same mortgage repayments.

How could that add up? How is that real? In place of it we have a mortgage arrears resolution process that is not working. This is my third week in a row to raise this issue. We need the Minister for Finance to come to the House because this is the big issue coming down the line. We have personal debt and mortgage debt. I will not let the banks lecture homeowners given all we have done for them.