Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Shortall for the proposed amendment, which is the same as one she tabled on Committee Stage. We have had a good debate on this. The purpose of the amendment, as I understand it, is to switch the cut-off point before which less onerous retrospective provisions apply to certain donor-assisted human reproduction procedures from May 2020 to a later date into the future. In doing so, the amendment would allow for a declaration of parentage arising from donor-assisted human reproduction procedures which took place after commencement of the 2015 Act but did not meet the requirements set out in that Act. In addition to procedures which took place in a non-clinical setting and in clinics outside Ireland, this would include procedures where the identity rights of donor-conceived children are not protected. This would be up to the point that the intended new provisions of the 2015 Act are commenced. Currently, these provisions only apply to the date of commencement of the 2015 Act which was 4 May 2020, after which there was a clear regulatory framework in place for assigning parentage arising from donor-assisted human reproduction. Therefore, I do not believe this amendment should be incorporated into the Bill. It would undermine the provisions in the 2015 Act which were put in place primarily to protect the identity rights of donor-conceived children, whilst also ensuring certainty as regards parentage from the point of a donor-assisted human reproduction procedures, as well as the clinical safety of such procedures.

At the same time, it should be noted that while the Children and Family Relationships Act was enacted in 2015, the provisions regarding retrospective declarations of parentage were not commenced until May 2020. Amendments which were agreed on Committee Stage of this Bill will extend the circumstances under which a retrospective declaration of parentage can be granted for the time up until the date of commencement of the Bill. On Committee Stage, we already created a very significant and important time where parentage can and should be recognised. It is only for that period after the commencement of those provisions. We made important progress on Committee Stage in going back to 2015 and we have the balance right now, post-Committee Stage.

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