Seanad debates

Thursday, 26 March 2015

Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Ivana BacikIvana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I believe the provisions in the Bill as drafted strike an appropriate balance. I accept, as others have said, it is a sensitive area. It is very difficult and complex to ensure we strike an appropriate balance between the right of donor-conceived children to know their identity and other interests, including ensuring that it will be possible for couples or individuals who are suffering from infertility to access the facilities we are talking about and which people are already accessing in a situation that is unregulated.

I think the balance is struck appropriately. I refer colleagues to the recommendation of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality which is being followed in the Bill that there should be access to identifying information. To go beyond that and include too much information is probably not appropriate in the context. More importantly in this debate we need to be very careful about recognising the sensitivity and should not use terms such as commodity and commodification as Senator Power has said. That is most distasteful and unfair. It is disrespectful to the many thousands of couples and individuals who have suffered from infertility problems and also to the children and adults who have been conceived through donor-assisted human reproduction currently living in Ireland.

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