Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the Minister of State. He is a very good and diligent colleague, a very hard worker for our party and was also very good to me when he was Chair of the Committee on Transport and Communications, which I commend him on.

I am about to have a hissy fit and it is not personal. Deputy O'Donnell is a Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and this is a matter about families and it is under the Department of Health. It is outrageous the Department of Health saw fit to send in someone from a different Department to address what is a very serious issue for families and it also, a Chathaoirligh, shows absolute contempt to the Seanad that the Department of Health thinks such a response is all right. I completely object to that.

Last December, the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, came out in a great flurry and was very well-received by the surrogacy community in Ireland for the announcement of the memo to Cabinet about the fact the Government is going to legislate for international surrogacy. Such legislation will have two elements, namely, a prospective one for babies that will be born and a retrospective one to address the babies born and families living here where the second parent in all those families has no standing in law - none - with regard to their child. If the child is more than two years old and the parent has cohabited with that child, the parent gets an opportunity to apply to the District Court for guardianship of that child. The parent does so only on the consent of the biological father of that child. If that relationship has broken down, that ends up in a very abusive, coercive situation. Irish Families Through Surrogacy and I are supporting at least ten families, predominantly women and two men, who are the second parents in these situations and are having their access to their own child limited. Thus the child may be weaponised in situations of family breakdown. There are also situations where the biological father has a terminal or very serious illness. In the event of that father's death, the child would be left with no parent in the State.

I can predict the Minister of State's speech. I predict it says this is complicated, there are many amendments to come through and we are the first state to legislate for this, which is a lie, by the way. I have heard these speeches from the Department of Health a million times at this stage. It is not good enough. There are families suffering detriment because of the fact the Government is slow and not urgent about bringing forth this legislation.

This week I made a very simple data subject access request in respect of my daughter concerning a very small matter. I sent in her birth certificate and stated I am her mother and am entitled to make that claim. They came back contesting that because the birth certificate is a foreign one. I had to produce the court orders to prove I am the mother of my child. That is not good enough. I should have had an Irish document that shows my parental order. My child should have an official State document that has my husband and me as her parents. As for the possibility that the relationship between myself and my husband were to break down, I am thankful we have strong marriage but I had to say as much in the email. I had to say this is a District Court order for guardianship and custody but our relationship is very sound. You end up overexplaining your personal life because the Government has dragged its heels and is making an absolute meal out of this when there should have been a level or urgency.

The report of the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy was delivered last July and we are now into February. I need a timeline for when these amendments are going to get into the committee so applications can be made to the court.