Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It was obvious last year that the Minister is entirely in facilitatory mode. It does not matter what human rights abuses are entailed here. The adults shall have what they want. Amendment No. 27 is obviously the international surrogacy version of the amendments to which I already spoke. I propose the deletion in page 77 of lines 4 to 6, which refer to a surrogate mother who is an EU citizen and who has been habitually and lawfully resident in that jurisdiction for not less than five years immediately preceding her entering into the agreement. This is not just a matter of changing it from two years to five years in terms of habitual and lawful residency. It also requires that the surrogate mother be an EU citizen. I am obviously trying to limit the worst effects of what the Government and its supporters contemplate doing here. Like the old man in Connemara supposedly asked by some tourists for directions to Dublin, I would not start from here. Since this is what the Minister is proposing, however, I challenge him at least to accept this amendment.

One other downstream version of what the Government proposes to do is here is the risk of the development of a surrogacy industry, with foreign surrogates being brought to Ireland to avail of the medical system here. I would like the Minister to tell me why he does not accept the proposed limitation of this to surrogate mothers who are EU citizens. I imagine his reason for not accepting the two years to five years change is similar to the one he gave earlier in the context of the amendment on domestic surrogacy.Why will the Minister not accept the requirement that the surrogate mother be an EU citizen?