Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Before the Minister arrived in the House, I frustrated the Order of Business because of this Bill. I did so deliberately. I did so because I am a legislator and a Member of this House. As Senator McDowell said a short time ago, we are here to look at and analyse legislation and to propose amendments to improve it. For Second Stage to be before the House today and for all other Stages to be taken next Thursday is repugnant to that purpose. I know the Minister does not make those decisions but it is important to say that.

An accusation was thrown at me that I had joined the pro-life crowd. I know nobody in this world who is anti-life so I reject that statement out of hand.

I compliment the Minister for bringing forward this Bill. It is time we had legislation. Senator McDowell made the point that he took a case on behalf of the Attorney General ten years ago. I have no difficulty with the legislation coming through.

In my time, surrogacy was a slightly different thing. In large families, a child might be given to a sister or brother who could not have a child. That was perfectly acceptable then and I see nothing wrong with it now. I also see absolutely nothing wrong with a relation being a surrogate for a woman, perhaps a sister, who is in difficulty and cannot have a child for whatever reason. I will qualify that by saying we all must accept that none of us has a right to a child. A child is a blessing that comes to us if we are lucky. I am fortunate enough to have two children and three gorgeous granddaughters whom I love dearly. That is something we should never try to deny anybody.

There are difficulties in the Bill, specifically in the area of surrogacy. Before coming to the House, I looked on the web. It looks from my perspective as if surrogacy is something available to the wealthy and not to the poor. That is simply wrong, in every sense of the word. International surrogacy really bothers me. I see strong regulation in the United States. I looked yesterday at advertisements for surrogacy from Ukraine and Georgia for €65,000. For me, that would be great. If I wanted a child that badly and could afford it, I would go for that. However, it is agencies that are setting up these €65,000 transactions. How much goes to the unfortunate woman who carries the child? It was suggested that €10,000 would be an awful lot of money to the people who live in one of those countries and they would be delighted to get their hands on that money. I want to know what happens to the other €55,000. We can regulate here all we want but we cannot regulate what happens outside our own jurisdiction. That is going to be a problem.

There is an issue of birth certificates. I am mindful of two children who were adopted at birth and asked to meet their birth mother. In one case, the birth mother always grieved that she gave away her child. She was delighted to get the request to meet. She got her hair done and bought new clothes. She met her daughter in a restaurant in Galway and the daughter sat with a notebook across the table from the woman in question. When the mother went into the restaurant, she expected to give her daughter a hug but no hug was forthcoming. The young woman asked if the other woman was her birth mother. She said she was. The daughter then asked a number of health-related questions. When she finished, she closed the notebook, stood up and said, "I don't ever want to see you again ever" and walked away. It left devastation behind.

We must remember that the girls of the generation I grew up in did not have a choice. They were sent to mother and baby homes, disowned by society and run away by their families.

I have a slight difficulty with where we are going, particularly on international surrogacy. Are we building up cases in which the State will be held liable in the future by those who have been denied access to the woman who bore them and brought them into the world? A certain amount of exploitation is taking place here. We are talking about countries where people earn very little money and have thoughts of making a killing. Is there coercion involved? In a former job, we had the unfortunate task of ferrying young women from a gate to a ship. We know what they were going to the ship for. I remember a husband and father bringing up his wife and daughter to leave them on board the ship for the use of the sailors and collecting them two days later. Coercion happens all the time. Where men are involved with women, there is always an element of coercion.

How do we protect surrogate mothers? That is my issue. How do we protect those women who will carry a child into the world? I am delighted for those who are able to afford the surrogacy and get a child out of who they love. There are other moral and ethical issues. When the child is born with a deficiency or disability, do the parents still take the child or do they say that is not what they contracted for? I am deeply moved by, and concerned by, this Bill. I would like more time to debate the issues in this House without some of the emotion and the insulting behaviour that has gone back and forth. We are all honourable people trying to do our best.