Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This does allow it through celibacy, now that you mention it. We have this bizarre situation where high-profile people have been able and enabled to have children through surrogacy. We have had the stories about wanting to bring them in from Ukraine in the context of the war and so on. All of that is stuff we can readily sympathise with, within the facts as they are. The problem is there are unseen and future victims of all these arrangements. The media, not having done its job in this area, not having challenged the issues, not having teased them out, and not having looked at the issues of controversy, has enabled the Government, with its heavy majority, to cave in to certain special interest groups without having regard to the rights of other people, in this case the financially disadvantaged, the poor women, here and in other countries, who are already being exploited by surrogacy, and without having regard to the children who are being deprived of certain rights in this whole process. It is cynical and reckless that we should be having, with this surrogacy legislation, such a rushed debate about something that is so far-reaching. Let there be no doubt that this legislation does and will enable the exploitation of impoverished women in Ireland and especially in poorer countries abroad, that exploitation being by financially advantaged women and men who want a baby created to their own preference. The fact the Government will use the guillotine in the Seanad today to forge ahead with these controversial and unchallenged proposals, although it could be said they are not controversial in the sense that the debate has not been facilitated and has not taken place, and given the exploitation at the heart of this legislation and given the commodification of children, it is just wrong that the guillotine should be used on this legislation in the way that is happening.The public should not let the matter rest and people should raise their voices in protest. They should protest first that surrogacy is being enabled at all, given the exploitation of women involved and the deprivation of children's rights at the heart of it. They should protest, second, at the way it is being done, without even basic safeguards being guaranteed, including the one we discussed on an earlier Stage about specifically excluding from the process people with a criminal history in the area of child sexual abuse.

As we look at this section dealing with intending parents, it is not even required by the State that the child would have two parents. It is deliberately foreseen that the child will be deprived automatically. As I said, it happens in life unavoidably, but to deliberately and intentionally deprive a child in advance by enabling surrogacy arrangements to be entered into by single intending parents is wrong. It is wrong to do it when the single intending parent can be as young as 21 when they enter into that agreement. It is wrong to do it in a way that would allow the genetic father of the child to present to the world and indeed be registered as the mother and the genetic mother to be registered as the father, as I understand is the legal possibility under this legislation and is certainly not prevented by it. That makes a mockery of all of the discussion that took place in the lead-up to the recent referendums, actually. A considerable proportion of public disquiet around those referendums had to do with the attitude to mothers and motherhood in our society. It was not everybody's concern but it was an issue for quite a few people according to the reports and surveys that were done. I would take the book on it that most people, if they were aware of this, would be outraged.

It is not theoretical to talk about the importance of mothers and fathers, distinctly and separately, for children. It is only because the Government does not see that mothers have a specific contribution to the life of children and that fathers have a specific contribution to make to the lives of children, notwithstanding all the research that shows what children suffer when they do not have father figures in their lives, for example. The Government does not care. It only requires that you have one genetic parent in your life under these arrangements. It does not care if you have only one parent and it does not care whether you have a mother or whether you have a father. That is a scandal. It is not solely, as is often claimed, religious-minded people who would object to this. It is anybody with a titter of wit and a titter of sensitivity to the reality of children's lives, it seems to me. It is abhorrent to me and to many others, bad enough that this is to be happening at all, but that it is so sweeping.

I said this before in criticising the ombudsman and others. When it comes to children's rights, and all the talk and the cant about standing up for children's rights in this society, when it comes to it the people with the power are not interested in children's rights until the adults have got what they want. That is at the heart of this legislation. The adults must have what they want, even if the child does not get to have a mother or a father, even if the young man commissioning the child is immature at 21 once the regulator is are satisfied, even if others might not be, that there is no exposure to harm or neglect. No standards whatsoever are being applied here, that is, objective standards in respect of the entitlement of the child to have a father and mother in his or her life.

I would also like to ask the Minister one specific question. I am sure the answer is elsewhere in the Bill but since the section in question is referred to in this section, section 56, I will ask now. Section 56(4) provides:

The intending parents ... shall give an undertaking in the specified form, before the section 53application concerned is made, that he or she shall— (a) take all necessary steps to provide care and protection, prevent harm or neglect to, and ensure the welfare of, any child born as a result of AHR treatment provided pursuant to the surrogacy agreement, and

(b) make a section 65application in respect of any child born as a result of AHR treatment provided pursuant to the surrogacy agreement.

That section 65 application is, of course, the application for the parental order. What happens if, despite the undertaking, the intending parent or parents does or do not eventually make the section 65 application?