I thank the Deputy for her words. We launched the inquiry this morning. These families have fought for many years to get the truth. They will now get the truth. We have appointed the independent chair. She will be an excellent chair and will bring a robust set of skills and experiences to this. First and foremost, the inquiry will put the voices and experiences of the families - the mums, dads, sons and daughters, boys and girls - front and centre. We will get an official timeline and we will look at the resources …

I thank the Deputy for her question. I pay tribute to the work that our psychiatric nurses do right across this country. This Government, including myself and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is deadly serious about the expansion of mental health services. The budget in that regard has increased by several hundred million euro in the lifetime of this Government. I will be the first to acknowledge that our front-line clinicians are experiencing pressures because of the pause on hiring. It is worth remembering t…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It can be an issue for families, particularly when they are already dealing with all the trauma and difficulty of undergoing cancer treatment. It can be a difficult time. We have taken important steps, some of which were called for by the Irish Cancer Society. Probably the biggest it called for was the abolition of inpatient charges. That is now fully in place, along with the expansion of 500,000 GP cards and the reduction in the drug payment scheme cap from €110 to €80. I…

Many different issues have been raised and I will endeavour to go through them. I will start by making a point on some of the comments made around the rights or suitability of two men or two women to raise a child. People have their own view and I will not try to dissuade anyone of their views; they are what they are. I will say in a personal capacity and as Minister for Health and a member of this Government that the Government fully believes that one parent or two parents – be they two men, two women or a man and…

Senator Ruane made the point that there may be people who are carrying offences, such as a minor drugs possession charge from years ago. She made the point that there could be prejudicial assessment against people from lower-income families or communities. That is exactly why we are giving the regulatory authority the powers to assess on a case-by-case basis but they are assessing based on criteria specified in law, in statutory instrument by the Minister, and the Minister must make those regulations in accordance …

I thank the Senator. He is asking a question that I believe is a rhetorical measure, which is asking what if everything fails. We can ask that about anything. We can ask that about anything in our entire State: what if the courts fail; or the roads authority; or the HSE; or the doctors and nurses; or the police; or the Oireachtas. You can ask that about anything – any law or protections in place in our society about anything. As legislators, we empower the courts, State agencies and State authorities to do a job. W…

However, everything is based on the information available. Decisions cannot be based on information that is not available. Any decisions that any State agency makes, any clinical decision that any doctor makes or any decision that any judge makes on any given day is based on the information available. There is nothing weak in saying it is based on the facts. That is essentially what that means. It goes on to state that not only will the Minister be obliged to list all the documentation required - in answer to the S…

I ask the Chair for a steer. I would very much like to make a final contribution. If a vote is called, will we be able to reconvene after it for final comments? Is that in order?

That is outstanding.

I thank Senator Seery Kearney for her heartfelt, sincere, thought-provoking and personal contribution. There will be panic around Ireland if one in three fathers are not, in fact, the genetic fathers of their children. I thank her for clarifying that this statistic relates to fathers for whom a test is required as part of court proceedings. Without that clarification, there could be widespread panic across the hills and valleys of Ireland this evening. I am saddened to hear that the Senator, after years of valiant …

That is not a view to which I subscribe. All combinations of people, whether two women, two men, a man and a woman, one woman or one man, can be, and regularly are, fantastic parents. For all the reasons we have discussed, that is, of course, being legislated for in the Bill. We are setting out the pathway for single parents. One of the questions asked was what happens if the intending parents end up not applying for a parental order. Senator Seery Kearney has brilliantly demonstrated how unlikely that is, given ev…

I will wrap up on this if the Leas-Chathaoirleach can give me a little bit of leniency of this. It is unlikely that the parents would not apply.

It is unlikely but in the case that it does happen, depending on the circumstances, if the child is already with the intending parents and they for some reason did not make an application for the parental order, the current laws would apply in terms of guardianship or parentage due to a genetic link but the other partner would not get the parental order, which is, of course, the entire purpose of the application. If an issue were to arise between the surrogate and the intending parents, that is a matter for the fam…

I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to say a few words. What I want to say is this: this legislation matters. It matters to the hundreds and possibly thousands of children who have been born through surrogacy and to their mums and dads, some of whom have never had full parental rights for their own children. I have met many of them. I received a beautiful video from two of them in the last few days. It matters to the many women and men whose last chance of having a child is through surrogacy. It provides …

I refer to her extraordinarily brave representations. Her contributions to the debate were very personal. People can be left feeling vulnerable when they expose themselves in that way. I acknowledge the Senator's contributions. I also acknowledge Senators Catherine Ardagh and Fiona O’Loughlin, who have been pushing on this, and pushed very hard on IVF to get that through as well. There are further issues, which are being addressed in a forthcoming Bill. This Bill is massively important but we have further work to d…

I thank the Senators for submitting this group of amendments. On amendment No. 1, I do not agree with the premise that an adoption application involving a child not genetically related is exactly the same as a surrogacy application involving a potential child who will be genetically related to at least one of the intending parents or possibly both of them. I am satisfied that we have the balance right as regards the safeguards in place and the requirements to be met by intending parents as part of the dual approval…

I thank both Senators. As I said in my initial remarks, the concerns Senator Keogan very reasonably raised are already covered. It is not the case that there are no safeguards in place and that this would be inserting a safeguard at the last minute. There are, as I am sure she would support, numerous safeguards that would pick up not just on the offence she listed but much more broadly. She stipulated a single offence, which is a heinous crime. Nobody who has committed sexual assault or any sexual crime against a c…

As previously stated, the Bill makes it clear that the surrogate mother has the same rights as any other woman has during her pregnancy.

I seek the Acting Chairperson's guidance. The question Senator Mullen has raised is not covered in the amendments we are currently discussing but it is covered in the group comprising amendments Nos. 21, 26 and 33, which we will discuss later. Should we wait to discuss the Senator's question until we reach the amendments relevant to it?

I am happy to do it now. I am speaking to amendment No. 21 but I accept the point that it is related to the current amendments. Amendment No. 21 from Senators Mullen and Keogan would essentially mean the mother identified on the parenting order is not the genetic mother of the child and the father identified on the parenting order is not the genetic father of the child. My interpretation of where the Senators are going with this is to preclude any transgender person from availing of surrogacy, and that appears to b…