Assisted Human Reproduction
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-21
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Pádraig Rice (SD), Cork South-Central

I thank the Minister. I welcome the commitment to advance it because the pace of change has been far too slow. It is now 26 years since the commission on AHR, four years since the Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy, and seven months since the health committee published our report providing pre-legislative scrutiny of the legislation. There is real frustration about the delays here. We need to see urgent progress.
In relation to the case, and I mentioned this to the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, when we debated this in December, the State's failure to legislate has resulted in these cases. In the absence of legislation, people had no option but to go to the court to try to vindicate their rights. This will continue. We will have more people going to the courts trying to vindicate their rights in the absence of legislation. We need to pass the Bill. I have no doubt that, in some cases, there are people threatening the Minister with legal action who would withdraw that, but it is the absence of legislation. We have created this mess by delaying the legislation and by not progressing it in the 26 years since the commission published its report.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-21