Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to do it now. I am speaking to amendment No. 21 but I accept the point that it is related to the current amendments. Amendment No. 21 from Senators Mullen and Keogan would essentially mean the mother identified on the parenting order is not the genetic mother of the child and the father identified on the parenting order is not the genetic father of the child. My interpretation of where the Senators are going with this is to preclude any transgender person from availing of surrogacy, and that appears to be the intention. I guess Senator Mullen is directly asking that question. The very clear answer is “Yes”. Somebody who is transgender will have full rights to avail of surrogacy, as will anybody else.

I disagree entirely with the proposition that, as a society, we should say that a woman on her own can raise a child but a man on his own cannot raise a child. I fundamentally disagree. For me, it is an extraordinarily offensive proposition. There are men all over Ireland raising children on their own, be it through separation, divorce or bereavement, and they are exceptional fathers and exceptional men. I would find it extraordinary that we would say that men cannot raise children, or we should not entertain at the start of a family the idea that a man should not be allowed to have a child, but that a woman can and, of course, women do. I would fundamentally disagree with that proposition.

It is an interesting one. The Senator talked about women's rights and being a defender of women's rights at one point in his contribution. I disagree with that characterisation of his involvement in this. We have had debates on this and on safe access, and my observation is that the Senator works very hard and diligently to deprive women of their rights, particularly around fertility. Maybe he believes he is here defending women's rights. I certainly do not see it, I have to say.

When it comes to a single man who wants to have a child or children, surrogacy may be the only option available to him, and we are accepting that for a woman on her own. The Senator is pro-life. Surrogacy creates more life. It creates more children, more families and more mums and dads. I would have thought that people who are pro-family and pro-life, and indeed we are all pro-family and-----