Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is my first engagement with the Minister since The Irish Times reported us as having trading insults in this House. For the sake of any youth looking in, we should both agree that neither of us was insulting each other personally, even if we have been somewhat insulting of each other’s political point of view. In that regard, I commend the Minister on his tie today.

Section 53(3) provides that each of the parties in the case of two intending parents understand that, "should the agreement be approved under this section but he or she dies before the embryo transfer concerned has been effected, such approval will be treated as revoked from and including the date of death". Could it be, in the Minister’s understanding, that an embryo might have been created but not transferred to the womb of the surrogate mother and, in that circumstance, there is a created embryo in being but no longer a surrogacy agreement? Is that what I should take from that? These are difficult issues to imagine in the abstract but I want to ask the Minister that. If he does not mind spelling it out, what is implication of that in practice?