Seanad debates

Thursday, 26 March 2015

Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015: Committee Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Rónán MullenRónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has had much more consultation, I would aver and I would be bound, with the fertility industry than she has with people who have deep concerns about the legislation. I would like to know whether the Minister has actually had a one-on-one meeting with anyone who is concerned about where the Government is going on this. I would love if she had met Dr. Joanna Rose; perhaps she did. Dr. Rose has been in Ireland on numerous occasions. She is a woman who discovered she was donor-conceived. She took the case to the High Court in London looking to vindicate donor-conceived persons' rights to their genetic identity. She won, although because of evasive practice it remains a partial victory. She has a PhD in the area of the human rights of donor-conceived persons. She has spoken about the heartbreak and difficulty that goes with having discovered she may have hundreds of half-siblings. I cannot see that this legislation has anything to say to this other than "Go ahead," if that is what one decides, except that it will not allow donors to be anonymous. Even then, as we will see, the penalties for clinics that fail in their record-keeping are very weak and poor, which suggests that what is really at work is all about facilitating such donation. I will come to that in due course. When one considers that a failure to keep proper records in a clinic could prevent a child from ever knowing who he or she is in terms of one of his or her parents, it is remarkable how light the Minister goes on them in the Bill and it is highly revealing. So much for Ireland following international best practice.

Conception and the creation of children involves more than a transfer of genetic material. The need of a child to be loved and cared for by the man and woman who conceived them and gave them one half each of their genetic and family history is no small matter. The legislation declares that a donor is not the parent of a child born as a result of that procedure and has no parental rights and duties in respect of the child.

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