Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend the work of the Minister for Health. Yesterday he held a briefing with the Dáil members of the health committee in advance of Report Stage of the assisted human reproduction Bill. I believe Report Stage is due for next week. That is a fantastic development. The time between now and the end of term will fly by quickly and I ask we make sure there is adequate time in our schedule to facilitate a full and, I expect, robust debate on that Bill in this House.

The urgency of this legislation cannot be underestimated. The Acting Leader and I have girls in the same class in school and this time last year we were getting them ready for Holy Communion. It never occurred to us we would not dress them that morning, go to the hairdressers and do the other bits and pieces we did. However, in the past week I have been contacted by mothers being denied exactly that because they have no legal standing in this country with regard to their much-wanted child. These are women who have suffered life-changing health issues and had to resort to surrogacy in order to have their babies, only to find in the breakdown of their marriage that their lack of legal standing is weaponised by the biological fathers. One distraught woman was on to me in the past week who is being denied that and being treated as a guest at her own child's Holy Communion. We have managed to reverse that situation but that is the reason we need a legislative pathway for women and second fathers to make applications to the courts. That is in that legislation and it cannot come soon enough.