Report of the Joint Committee on Health: Motion Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18 ============================================================ Pádraig Rice (SD), Cork South-Central I thank the Ceann Comhairle and the Minister of State. I really welcome the remark that many of the recommendations will be included and reflected in the legislation when it is finally published. That is very welcome. I will be glad to report back to the rest of the committee on that. That is great to see. What is missing, and I think the Minister of State would agree, is clarity on the timeline here. When we engaged with the Minister over the summer there was pressure for us to progress our engagement on this issue because the Minister was keen to progress the legislation. As I said, we worked on this report in August and we published it when we came back straight away. This is why I am slightly frustrated with the delay here. We wanted to see the legislation before Christmas and we wanted to see this progressed. It is frustrating that we have not got that clear timeline from the Minister of State today about when the Bill will be published, when it will be enacted, when it will be commenced, when the families directly affected will get the rights that they are arguing for and when the families will get the protections they need. Crucially this is what it is about. It is unfortunate that we go into another year with that uncertainty. This could have been resolved this side of Christmas and it is disappointing that it is not. A number of Deputies referenced the commencement of section 232 of the 2024 Act. That relates to families who used a known donor in the past, in particular lesbian couples who used a known donor in the past, and them getting recognised and jointly protected. I know people whose kids are now 18 and they still are not protected. These are people who created a family together with a friend who might have been a donor before we had marriage equality. In some cases it was while same-sex activity was still a crime. They created families together, they did it ethically and the State has never recognised them jointly as parents. These are people who brought these kids up together in loving, stable relationships, raised beautiful children and all they are asking for is that they get recognised as their parents. It is there in law. It is written into the law but it has not been commenced by the Minister. This is something I have asked parliamentary questions about. I know other Deputies have asked parliamentary questions about it. From these parliamentary questions we know that the courts have done their side of the work, that the District Court has updated the rules, that the Circuit Court has updated the rules, and it is now sitting on the Minister's desk waiting for the Minister to sign the Commencement Order. I would ask her to do that before Christmas. At least do that. Commence the one part. The law is already passed and the rules are in place. What she could do now is sign the Commencement Order and give these families the gift of those protections before Christmas for this small cohort of families so that they would have that joint parental right. It would be the start of the journey on this. It would be a really good act if the Minister could commence that because we do know that all the pieces are in place for this and it is just waiting on the Minister to sign the Commencement Order. Saying in her statement that she intends to do it is not enough. I want to know why the Minister has not done it and if she will do that before Christmas. I would like if the Minister of State could bring that back to her. In her closing statement the Minister of State also referred to the legal cases, and that this may be one of the reasons why we have not seen progress in the last six months. We cannot wait while the cases go through the courts. In the absence of legislation what we will have is more cases before the courts. Families who are deeply frustrated are now taking to the courts to vindicate their rights. We are going to have more cases. The longer the Minister delays the more cases we will have, and the more delays we will have. These cases will advance through the courts. Cases that are in the High Court will be in the Supreme Court and we will wait and we will wait. What the Department and the Minister can do is resolve all of that and they can provide the certainty. We can legislate in this House and families would not be forced to go to the courts. It is at huge personal cost and huge stress for individuals to go to the High Court to try to vindicate their rights to get protections for their family, very basic protections in law, to be regarded as the parents of their own children. We should not be expecting families to do that. It is frustrating when we hear that this is the delay, that the State's failure to pass a law means that now people have had to go to the courts, which is now holding up the passing of the law. When will this end? If we pass the law we can resolve all of that. I have no doubt that if the law is passed those people who are before the courts would withdraw those cases because the legislation will resolve the issues and will provide them with the protections in place. As I have said a number of times here, I am concerned about the legislative output. I think we have passed fewer Bills in this year than nearly any year since the foundation of the State. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-18