Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I, too, welcome the Minister of State. He is a very good and diligent colleague, a very hard worker for our party and was also very good to me when he was Chair of the Committee on Transport and Communications, which I commend him on.

I am about to have a hissy fit and it is not personal. Deputy O'Donnell is a Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and this is a matter about families and it is under the Department of Health. It is outrageous the Department of Health saw fit to send in someone from a different Department to address what is a very serious issue for families and it also, a Chathaoirligh, shows absolute contempt to the Seanad that the Department of Health thinks such a response is all right. I completely object to that.

Last December, the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, came out in a great flurry and was very well-received by the surrogacy community in Ireland for the announcement of the memo to Cabinet about the fact the Government is going to legislate for international surrogacy. Such legislation will have two elements, namely, a prospective one for babies that will be born and a retrospective one to address the babies born and families living here where the second parent in all those families has no standing in law - none - with regard to their child. If the child is more than two years old and the parent has cohabited with that child, the parent gets an opportunity to apply to the District Court for guardianship of that child. The parent does so only on the consent of the biological father of that child. If that relationship has broken down, that ends up in a very abusive, coercive situation. Irish Families Through Surrogacy and I are supporting at least ten families, predominantly women and two men, who are the second parents in these situations and are having their access to their own child limited. Thus the child may be weaponised in situations of family breakdown. There are also situations where the biological father has a terminal or very serious illness. In the event of that father's death, the child would be left with no parent in the State.

I can predict the Minister of State's speech. I predict it says this is complicated, there are many amendments to come through and we are the first state to legislate for this, which is a lie, by the way. I have heard these speeches from the Department of Health a million times at this stage. It is not good enough. There are families suffering detriment because of the fact the Government is slow and not urgent about bringing forth this legislation.

This week I made a very simple data subject access request in respect of my daughter concerning a very small matter. I sent in her birth certificate and stated I am her mother and am entitled to make that claim. They came back contesting that because the birth certificate is a foreign one. I had to produce the court orders to prove I am the mother of my child. That is not good enough. I should have had an Irish document that shows my parental order. My child should have an official State document that has my husband and me as her parents. As for the possibility that the relationship between myself and my husband were to break down, I am thankful we have strong marriage but I had to say as much in the email. I had to say this is a District Court order for guardianship and custody but our relationship is very sound. You end up overexplaining your personal life because the Government has dragged its heels and is making an absolute meal out of this when there should have been a level or urgency.

The report of the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy was delivered last July and we are now into February. I need a timeline for when these amendments are going to get into the committee so applications can be made to the court.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I acknowledge how serious an issue this is for families. Obviously, Senator Seery Kearney has been a pioneer on this, has campaigned on this and has done a huge amount of political work on it. It is a matter that needs to be expedited. With that, I begin by thanking the Senator for giving me, on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, the opportunity to inform the House of the up-to-date position in respect of introducing legislative provisions for the regulation of international surrogacy and historic surrogacy arrangements.

As the Senator is aware, the Minister for Health, together with the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Children Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, submitted proposals for the consideration of Cabinet in respect of both the regulation of international surrogacy and the recognition of certain past domestic and international surrogacy arrangements. This policy direction and draft outline legislative scheme were approved by Government in mid December 2022, and the Minister wrote to the Attorney General before Christmas to request the prioritisation of the formal drafting of these legislative amendments.The drafting process by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, in conjunction with the three Departments, as appropriate, is well under way. I have followed up on it myself. It is being prioritised. I have spoken to officials directly and people are working exclusively on this issue in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel in the Attorney General's office. I am aware of how important it is for both the Senator and for parents, of which she is one. The intention is to insert the finalised new legislative provisions in respect of international surrogacy and past surrogacy arrangements into the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022 on Committee Stage, along with any other proposed amendment to the published Bill. These new provisions will need to be approved by the Government following completion of formal drafting by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. That was agreed in December 2022. The process, therefore, of drafting new provisions in respect of prospective international surrogacy, the recognition of past domestic surrogacy arrangements and the recognition of past international surrogacy arrangements is being undertaken in tandem with the drafting of potentially substantial proposed amendments to the 11 Parts and 134 pages of the published Bill.

On behalf of the three Ministers and the Government, I reiterate their gratitude for the work undertaken by the special Oireachtas Joint Committee on International Surrogacy, of which the Senator was an esteemed member. She made reference to the report that is informing these amendments. The stated position of the three Ministers and the Government is to seek, insofar as appropriate and possible, to implement the recommendations of the committee. However, Senator Seery Kearney will appreciate that it is crucial the final detailed provisions are robust and able to withstand rigorous scrutiny, given the range of complexities involved, the rights of the various parties involved in surrogacy arrangements and the necessity to ensure consistency with any related existing legislation in the Statute Book. I understand the Senator's frustration but I think everyone here wants to get this right. In this regard, it should also be noted that the three Departments are not aware of any other state that has attempted to provide such a bespoke and comprehensive legislative solution to the issues arising from its own citizens engaging in international surrogacy. The Senator has already made reference to that. The Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, is aware, and completely understands the reasons Senator Seery Kearney is eager to know when these amendments will be ready for publication. However, at this juncture a definitive timeline as to when Committee Stage of the Bill will be scheduled cannot be provided. I have spoken to the Minister and the official. I have asked for it to be prioritised. Nevertheless, it is anticipated that the three Ministers will be in a position to bring the proposed new three surrogacy Parts of the Bill to Cabinet within the next couple of months. Finally, the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, wants to reassure Senators, particularly Senator Seery Kearney, that he wishes to progress this much-needed and long-awaited historic legislation as quickly as possible. He wants to ensure that both the goal of providing a route to formal recognition by the State of past surrogacy arrangements or surrogacy arrangements in other jurisdictions is achieved and that a robust regulatory framework for assisted human reproduction more broadly is put in place.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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As a colleague, I know that if the Minister of State stands here and says he has made the phone calls and gives that reassurance, I know that he has. I am grateful for that. However, there are other concerns here. For example, the position paper approved by the Cabinet talks about application to the High Court for retrospective surrogacies. The regulatory authority would also have to be established. If that is what we are looking at my daughter, who is now almost eight, will be ten or 12 at the rate at which this is operating. Even were the legislation to be in place by the summer, we are still looking at another year before there will be applications to court. People like me, whose documentation has already had judicial oversight on not one but two occasions still have to apply and go to the expense of applying to the High Court. There are things in this, which are not person-centred or child-centred. As there is no sense of urgency, I ask the Minister of State to bring that back. It is my understanding that the Attorney General is sticking strictly by the High Court. I will be objecting to that all of the way through, as being totally unnecessary and cumbersome unless they are going to financially support it. We have already paid out tens of thousands to get in and get the legal orders we already have. It is unacceptable that there are any more delays like that.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I will conclude by emphasising the urgency with which the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, wishes to be in a position to bring the new surrogacy provisions on Committee Stage of the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022 to the Select Committee on Health for consideration. He is particularly determined to seek a way to speedily resolve the predicament and uncertainty faced by parents of existing children born through surrogacy. Although it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases, he is fully aware of the difficult situations some families face in ongoing court proceedings. Other key principles underpinning any new legislation measures on international surrogacy will be protection of the rights of all children born as a result of cross-border surrogacy arrangements and the safeguarding of the welfare of surrogacy mothers. I will bring the points raised by the Senator back to the Minister. I will ask him to correspond directly with her. It is a matter she has highlighted and it is a matter I will bring to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and I will ask him to communicate directly with her on those points. Formulating legislation adhering to these principles is challenging, given the absence of an international framework, and the challenges associated with overseeing practices and services in other jurisdictions. This includes having assurances that surrogacy arrangements are of the highest ethical standards and prioritising those who may be most vulnerable to exploitation in international surrogacy. However, building on the work of the Oireachtas committee, of which the Senator was a member, and the interdepartmental group, the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, hopes to be able to put forward the finalised new legislation to Cabinet shortly and ideally, when approved, to brief the Oireachtas accordingly .