Rónán Mullen (Independent)

There are many issues that the Department of Health should be grappling with as we all know, not least a lack of oversight of children's healthcare, the scoliosis issue and the endless saga around the national children's hospital. There are a range of issues that should be top priority, but when one looks at some of things that have been prioritised, it should really make us all wonder. Last year, the Department of Health pushed through assisted human reproductive legislation with very little discussion, public or otherwise, of its controversial Part 8 which would legalise controversial international surrogacy arrangements, effectively commercial surrogacy, because it would allow the involvement of paid intermediaries and, in the legislation, the payment of reasonable expenses is contemplated. All of this occurred against the background of a new updated EU directive about combating human trafficking. That directive now lists forced marriage, illegal adoption and the exploitation of surrogacy among the forms of human trafficking which member states, such as Ireland, have a duty to combat. The Government and the Department of Health knew this.

The Government was involved in talks on the directive in the months prior to the Bill. It had advice from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission that said that any domestic regulation that seeks to control surrogacy arrangements in other jurisdictions will likely be ineffective in preventing trafficking for exploitation of surrogates, is not considered best practice and is unlikely to be capable of being meaningfully implemented, but the Government went ahead nonetheless. I wrote to the Minister for Health recently and her private secretary said that issues were identified while the Bill was progressing which required further consideration. They did not say what. I strongly suspect that compatibility between Part 8 of the legislation passed and the anti-trafficking obligations which this country has is at the centre of it. Thanks to Mark Tighe in the Sunday Independent, we know the Department of Justice has said it is working to ensure the new Bill has sufficient safeguards to protect the rights of surrogate mothers, including from the threat of human trafficking, and to make sure Irish law is in line with EU obligations.

I do not know what forces have been at work within the Department of Health. This happened under the previous Minister. The new Minister has an obligation and the option to change the paradigm. We know there is a problem with any kind of international surrogacy arrangement because it is impossible to implement it in a way that avoids the human trafficking of women and, indeed, of children. Since we know we have no power or ability to prevent the exploitation of women in other jurisdictions, pushing ahead with Part 8 of the Bill would be dishonest and reckless and what the Minister should and must now do now is move to get rid of Part 8 of the assisted human reproduction Act in the forthcoming Bill on assisted human reproduction, which, we are told, is currently being drafted. It would be well worthwhile asking for the Minister to address this particular issue because something scandalous seems to have to gone on if, on the one hand, the Government was negotiating its obligations on the directive and, on the other, this destructive and exploitative stuff being pushed through by the Department of Health at the time.