Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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1424. To ask the Minister for Health the status of a matter (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39330/21]

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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2793. To ask the Minister for Health the status of a matter (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39200/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1424 and 2793 together.

As the Deputy will be aware, drafting of a bill on assisted human reproduction (AHR) and associated areas of research, based on the published General Scheme of the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill, is ongoing by officials in my Department, in conjunction with the Office of the Attorney General. This comprehensive piece of legislation will encompass the regulation, for the first time in Ireland, of a very wide range of practices, including domestic altruistic surrogacy.

The surrogacy provisions outline the specific conditions under which surrogacy in Ireland will be permitted, including a requirement for all surrogacy agreements to be pre-authorised by the AHR Regulatory Authority, the establishment of which the Bill will provide for. The legislation also sets out a court-based mechanism through which the parentage of a child born through surrogacy may be transferred from the surrogate (and her husband, if applicable) to the intending parent(s).

The draft Bill does not contain provisions to regulate surrogacy arrangements undertaken in other jurisdictions. As issues relating to international surrogacy concern areas of law that intersect across the remits of several Government Departments, my Department is engaging with the Department of Justice and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth in respect of this policy area.