Joint Committee on International Surrogacy debate -
Thursday, 26 May 2022

The Verona Principles: International Social Service

Chairman

In our second session today, we will consider the Verona Principles. On the behalf of the committee, I welcome to our meeting from the International Social Service, ISS, Mr. Jean Ayoub, secretary general and CEO, Ms Jeanette Woellenstein, director of the international centre of children and Ms Carlotta Alloero, senior liaison officer. They are all joining us online and I thank them very much for coming in today.

Before we begin, I am required to repeat the note on privilege and housekeeping matters. All witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. For witnesses who are attending remotely outside of the Leinster House campus, there are some limitations to parliamentary privilege. As such, they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness who is physically present does. Witnesses participating in this committee session from a jurisdiction outside of the State are advised that they should also be mindful of their own domestic law and how it may apply to the evidence they give.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I would like to remind members of the constitutional requirements that members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any members partaking via Microsoft Teams to confirm, prior to making their contribution, that they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

I call on Mr. Ayoub to make his opening statement please.

Mr. Jean Ayoub

As the secretary general of the International Social Service, I am honoured to attend today's meeting with my team. We are very pleased to have the opportunity to share with the committee further insights on the Verona Principles for the protection of the rights of the child who has been born through surrogacy.

The Verona Principles were published in March 2021 after a five-year long consultation process. Several members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, CRC, endorsed these principles, along with its drafting work. The ISS also could count on the support of the United Nations special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, as well as other international organisations that are working on matters related to children’s rights and surrogacy. The ISS engaged on this extensively and recognised the existence of important legal and practical gaps when it comes to respecting the rights of children who are born through surrogacy, despite the increasing recourse to assisted reproductive technologies, including through surrogacy.

The variety of domestic legal responses to surrogacy has led to persons seeking to have a child through surrogacy making the necessary arrangements in a surrogacy-friendly jurisdiction. This, together, with the financial benefits that might be gained, has resulted in the casual development of an international commercial surrogacy market with inherent risks of human rights abuses. It also has led to extremely complex and delicate cross-border problems in terms of safeguarding the rights of the children concerned.

While over the past years, case law has been developing from the perspective of children’s rights, neither the convention on the rights of the child nor any other international instrument deals explicitly with this question, leaving the different interpretations open. Therefore, nearly ten years ago, the ISS called for international recognition of surrogacy arrangements as they affect the children concerned. In this context, the ISS launched an initiative in 2016 to draw a set of principles that could be agreed on globally to guide and inform policy and legislation.

With the permission of the Chair, I will hand over to my associate, Ms Woellenstein.

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

The ISS convened and co-ordinated a core group of experts that prepared the first draft of the principles. This core group was responsible for regularly reviewing and adjusting the draft in the light of wider consultations. Consultations took place in Verona, Zurich, Israel, London, Geneva, The Hague, Cape Town and Cambodia. They have involved a broad group of experts and observers, including the UN CRC committee, government officials, representatives of The Hague Conference on Private International Law, the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, the UN special rapporteur, academics, members of the judiciary and practitioners from multidisciplinary backgrounds representing all regions in the world.

The lived experience of donor-conceived and surrogate-born persons were also sought and received.

The Verona Principles are divided into 18 interrelated principles that are all drafted from the standpoint of children's rights. They are inspired by, and grounded in, the provisions of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, its second optional protocol on the sale of children, and other relevant international human rights instruments. They stipulate comprehensive safeguards and protections for children born through surrogacy that should be established in relevant legislation, policy and decision-making processes. However, outside the scope of these principles are any ethical considerations as to whether surrogacy in any form should be permitted or prohibited. Hence the principles should not be used as a basis for condoning or encouraging surrogacy.

The Verona Principles are based on the premise that no child should be disadvantaged, suffer harm or be punished because of the circumstances of his or her birth. Compliance with the procedures and safeguards set out in these principles requires that regulation of surrogacy in any form excludes violations of the human rights of children, such as discrimination, statelessness, abuse and lack of access to origins. Forms that constitute or lead to the sale of children should be prohibited by law.

The principles are addressed to all states, public and private entities, civil society organisations, professionals and individuals, including surrogate mothers, intending parents and persons providing human reproductive material who are or may be directly or indirectly involved in surrogacy. It is our sincere hope the principles can assist the committee to hold informed discussions on the complex ethical, legal and human rights questions that are raised by surrogacy. I thank committee members for their attention.

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

I thank our guests for taking the time to be with us today. We are grateful they are here.

At the core of the Verona Principles are the rights of the child. In that context, we want to ensure the child knows who he or she is and that the child has that fundamental right to his or her identity and gestational story. Attendant to that is the circumstances surrounding the birth. We must acknowledge that this little person is going to live a lifetime with the story of how he or she came into being.

Already this morning we have heard from Professor Golombok regarding outcomes for children and how they cope with the fact they were born via surrogacy within the domestic arrangements of the UK. The committee heard that the earlier a child is told, the more adjusted he or she is to that fact as part of his or her story. Aligned to that is the concern we have for surrogate mothers. There is a need to ensure they are not exploited. We have also talked this morning about the right of a woman to make decisions. We should not assume based on the country of origin or their socioeconomic background that such mothers do not have the right to make decisions. Last week, we heard from the UN rapporteur that it is all right to compensate for the gestational services as long as that compensation is not contingent upon the surrender of parental rights and the transfer of a child. That is the distinction of sale.

Children in Ireland are extremely disadvantaged by the circumstances of their birth at present. We are proposing a domestic arrangement but we need to address the fact we are a small population. Even with the best domestic arrangement, people still travel internationally for what are legal services abroad. In those other countries, the birth certificates of those babies will in many instances represent the intended parent as opposed to the surrogate mother. The sort of mechanisms we are looking at, and at which academics have looked before us, include some sorts of pre-conception considerations, a threshold for the circumstances around the surrogate mother, the knowledge and awareness of the parents and the commitment to the identity of the child. We are also considering pre-birth arrangements so the child is not left stateless and is not left without a parent who can give consent for medical care once they arrive home in Ireland and before the judicial process is completed here. There would then follow a post-birth transfer of sorts.

Have our guests given consideration to good models? Are we going down the right route? I would welcome our guests' comments on the route we should take.

Chairman

To whom is the Senator directing that question?

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

Our guests are all from the same organisation so I direct it to whoever wants to respond.

Chairman

Perhaps Mr. Ayoub would like to come in and offer a response.

Mr. Jean Ayoub

I think Ms Woellenstein was ready to reply.

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

I thank the Senator for her excellent question. She addressed many aspects that are duly considered in, and key to, the Verona Principles. I invite the Senator to look at principle 5, which foresees certain pre-surrogacy protections. The Senator referred to pre-conception and we call those considerations pre-surrogacy protections. I think the committee is very much on the right path in that regard.

Principle 5 deals with pre-surrogacy protections. It calls for screenings, multidisciplinary assessments, informed consent of involved parties and a review of the surrogacy arrangements. It states that all these assessments should be done by independent professionals who have no perceived or actual conflict of interests in the surrogacy.

A distinction is made in these pre-surrogacy protections about the legal issues that should be dealt with to minimise the risk of disagreement concerning the determination of legal parentage post birth. There are other aspects included that are linked with health issues that should be determined. The principle calls for psychosocial suitability assessments, ongoing supports and counselling by independent and qualified professionals for the surrogate mother and the intending parents.

There is also a clause at the end that relates to matters the committee is considering now, which is encouraging. If there are no pre-surrogacy protections in place, there should automatically be a post-birth best interests determination, especially when it comes to the determination and transfer of legal parentage. Principle 5 will give the committee some important responses to the questions the Senator has raised.

Principle 6 deals with the best interests of the child, which should be the paramount consideration. It is a strong principle in all decisions about legal parentage and parental responsibility of a child born through surrogacy. This principle refers much more to the post-birth best interests assessments and determinations.

Many answers can be found in this principle. There are also references to international surrogacy arrangements. Best interest determinations should take place if there is at least one country involved that prohibits surrogacy.

The Senator raised other concerns. The Verona Principles are based on the premise that, where surrogacy occurs, it creates and severs relationships. As such, there should be openness in relationships and, where appropriate, they should be valued and sustained. There is this element of transparency in many of the principles. For example, principle 11 refers to the protection of identity and access to origins. It takes a strong position on access to information and the importance of the surrogate mother as well as the persons providing human reproductive materials. It calls for the provision of verified and accurate identifying information and for participants to agree to the transmission of that information before entering the arrangement. It encourages open surrogacy arrangements as an important safeguard for identity rights and access rights. It also encourages post-birth contact.

During our discussions and negotiations, we dealt with concerns for the surrogate mother extensively. There is a specific principle calling for her consent prior to entering the arrangement, during the pregnancy and post birth. This is principle 7. Confidence in the integrity of the surrogacy arrangement's circumstances is crucial for respecting children's rights. This principle on the consent of the surrogate mother also contains certain eligibility criteria to ensure that hers is a self-determined choice and she exercises free and informed decision making.

I hope that I have responded to the Senator's main concerns.

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

That was thorough. I thank Ms Woellenstein.

Deputy Patrick Costello

I wish to ask about the Verona Principles' application. They are broad, high-level principles, but what has been the experience of countries trying to implement them or build on them through their own legislation? Part of our work is trying not to reinvent the wheel. If we could see how others have applied the principles, it would be an important lesson for us.

One of the principles refers to a post-birth interests determination. This is a conversation that we have been having in recent weeks and I asked the witnesses who appeared just before this session about it. In some respects, there is a tension between what can be done before birth, what can be done post birth and the importance of legal certainty. This is a matter that our committee will have to decide on for ourselves. In terms of their discussions and agreements, do the witnesses have further information on this matter, how did the ISS come to its decision and what were the various contributions and positions involved?

These two questions are broad enough without me adding more.

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

I thank the Deputy for his excellent questions. As he will understand, the principles are aspirational and recall international standards in children's rights. However, they try to take into account current realities. If the Deputy reads through them, he will see that some of their provisions deal explicitly with states that permit surrogacy, states that prohibit it and states that simply encounter it. They are aspirational, but the idea was not to be too prescriptive. They are meant to take into account realities that exist on the ground as well as some promising practices. By looking at the various consultations in different regions in the world, we were able to learn more about some surrogacy systems or legislative measures that already have some experience behind them. The principles are informed by promising practices.

Perhaps Mr. Ayoub has information on whether they have served to inspire legislators and policymakers to implement them in practice, but it might be too early to say, as they were only adopted last year. Since then, we have been disseminating and promoting them, but we do not know whether they have led to concrete changes and implementations in practice. Does Mr. Ayoub wish to jump in on this point before I move on to best interest determinations?

Mr. Jean Ayoub

I will confirm what Ms Woellenstein has said. The principles were published in March of last year. Our approach has been to make them aspirational. We hope that more governments will take on the offer of turning these aspirational principles into procedures and articles of law and vote on them. I do not know of any government that has specifically asked for our advice on the Verona Principles and how to implement them in law. There might be some governments implementing them of which we are not aware.

I wish to add something about the consultation process. It was clear from our-----

(Interruptions).

Mr. Jean Ayoub

Our consultation process lasted for five years and we tried to involve every single expert from all walks of life and most cultures because we believed that their input would be important for the development of the principles. Every time we have heard someone insulting or cursing us, we have invited him or her to the table at The Hague, in Zurich, in Geneva and elsewhere so as to take into consideration everything that could be injected into these principles.

That is why, on the one hand they are good and they are aspirational. On the other hand, we took the opinion of more than 100 experts during these five years. Our hope, in very simple and practical terms, is that there would be a reference document for legislators to take on board, adapt and adopt to national legislation, culture, practices and best practice and that we remain as the custodians or guardians of the principles to be able to provide any insights, which is what we are doing today, in terms of what we believe. We cannot pretend that we have knowledge of all of the differences and arguments in each country. We are not experts in that but we can provide a reference from our experience of how these principles work and why we believe that every single country should take them on board, adapt and adopt them in national legislation.

Ms Carlotta Alloero

I would like to confirm that we are not aware of any country or government that has already used these principles. The principles are providing guidance to an important working group that is in place in The Hague, led by the permanent bureau of The Hague Conference on Private International Law. The group is discussing potential future instruments on legal parentage coming from surrogacy arrangements. We are advocating for these principles because they really highlight the safeguards that should be taken into consideration for any future instruments, safeguards that have not been taken into consideration so far.

Senator Lynn Ruane

I just have one question. I thank the witnesses for their presentation. Many of the principles as laid out would raise constitutional issues in Ireland. Principle No. 11, for example, refers to the protection of identity and access to origins. This is particularly relevant in Ireland in the current climate in the context of the Birth Information and Tracing Bill, for example. It is an issue that is very much on people's minds right now, particularly in the context of the rights of the child. The Verona Principles were only established last year and there is no concrete evidence yet of people taking them on but I am struck by how many natural rights are included. Some countries would already be enforcing some of these principles just in terms of the law of the land. When this work was done, was each country looked at individually in terms of how its current model contravenes the principles? I ask that in the context of Ireland's current parental order model. I ask the witnesses to comment on how Ireland's current parental order model contravenes many of the principles and how we can best reform our current model in order to meet the principles as laid out.

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

As we said previously, many government officials participated in our consultations, many of whom were from Legislatures that permit and are permissive of surrogacy. Of course, they shared certain concerns that their current legislation was not really in line with the principles but the principles are supposed to be aspirational. They are supposed to protect the rights of children born through surrogacy. Many issues were raised but there was always the hope that this might eventually lead to changes in legislation and policy with the aim of protecting the rights of children born through surrogacy. These concerns were taken into account and they led to changes in the exact formulation of the principles. As one can imagine, over the course of five years the principles changed extensively. The wording and the approach were reviewed because we always had this reality check and feedback from practitioners in different Legislatures. Of course, it is a balancing act. The principles are supposed to be aspirational. They are not supposed to be too prescriptive. That was the approach with regard to the principles and the hope is that they lead to concrete changes in practice.

Senator Lynn Ruane

I have another question on the principle around financial transparency which does not mean no compensation but transparency around it. I ask Ms Woellenstein to explain the intention of that principle.

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

Regarding compensation and commercial surrogacy, most of the debates centred on the need to prevent and prohibit the sale of children. One must read principle No.15 on transparency in financial matters along with principle No. 14. The approach adopted is that at a minimum, in order to prevent improper financial or other gain in connection with surrogacy, one needs transparency and accountability for any financial transactions. Principle No.15 holds that there should be written accounts and that information should be made available to courts and competent authorities with regard to remuneration, especially involving intermediaries. Remuneration should be reasonable and in line with comparable work in the field. All of the principles are interlinked and one must read them together. They do not take a stand on whether there should be remuneration or not.

Ms Carlotta Alloero

The principles are based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and national standards like the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, on which there is considerable consensus among governments.

Chairman

I have a number of questions. These principles are a very useful guideline for the future regulation of surrogacy. In Ireland we have had no regulation at all so we have a lot of families that are in limbo. I ask the witnesses to comment on dealing with the regulation of families formed through surrogacy retrospectively who are living in Ireland at the moment.

International surrogacy is an incredibly complex area. As the witnesses outlined, no country has actually taken on board the Verona Principles. At the moment in Ireland we have no regulation and obviously that leaves a lot of people at risk of exploitation by bad actors. Is any form of regulation better than the current situation we have? If, for example, we could not implement 100% of the Verona Principles, is getting to 80% or 90% better than the current non-regulation of surrogacy?

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

I thank the Chairman for these questions. With regard to retrospective regulation of surrogacy arrangements, if my recollection is correct it has not really come up during discussions while we drafted the principles. We can have a look at the archives and minutes and see whether different positions or debate have come up in this regard. We will take that question with us and write back to the committee, if that is okay.

Chairman

Yes, perfect.

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

With regard to the Chairman's second question, I would like to answer with the approach taken by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which one also sees in the preface of preliminary remarks at the beginning of the Verona principles but also in their concluding observations with regard to surrogacy in some states or countries where surrogacy is regulated. Their recommendations do not necessarily differ whether there is no regulation or whether the regulation is poor.

Of course, if Ireland implements some of the Verona principles that would be very encouraging for us but I merely wanted to share with the committee the position on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child that no regulation and a poorly regulated system might put children and all involved parties equally at risk.

Chairman

I thank Ms Woellenstein. I call Senator McGreehan.

Senator Erin McGreehan

I thank Ms Woellenstein for her important contribution today. We have skirted round her organisation and looked at the Verona principles. It is great to have Ms Woellenstein in front of us today.

They are important principles and they have not come by accident. They have come with great research and deliberation. It is important that we take them into serious consideration and work through them in this committee. We see on a European level, I hope, that the Verona principles will be the precursor to a European model of surrogacy and a framework that each country can use. How close are we, in terms of a timeline, to the Commission and the Parliament looking at this and creating that framework based on the Verona principles?

Chairman

Would Mr. Ayoub like to come in on that? His microphone is on mute.

Mr. Jean Ayoub

I always mute my microphone. I am sorry. I am much more accustomed to seeing my associates speak rather than myself because I am not the expert. I am merely an economist leading this organisation and very proud of its achievement.

The simple answer for me is we cannot give the Senator a timeline. I will give an example that can probably answer or support some of the comments that were made a couple of minutes earlier. Ten days ago, we were at a large meeting in Germany where the federal government was celebrating the 82nd meeting of the socio-legal support activities in the country. In one of the side meetings, I had a couple of high court judges and one child rights expert working with the Ministry of Justice and there was a question similar to what was asked about what if we adopt the surrogacy principles as they are and whether that would be better than having no law at all. The answer, not necessarily from me but from the group, is that in Germany, probably like Ireland - I am not comparing - that has some very advanced and structured laws in terms of child protection and in terms of human rights, there should be some adaptation, upgrades or transformation of current laws in order for the principles to have a better fit in national legislation.

I am a little traumatised by the European level. I discovered this organisation through a couple of Hague Conventions, mainly the 1996 Hague Convention. Then Brussels II was invented and Brussels II bis was invented. If, today, The Hague Permanent Bureau is working on certain principles, it is not ours to initiate something beyond European and more global on regulations for surrogacy. I am not sure if the European model would be better or not.

On behalf of our organisation, I say frankly that we were happy and super excited that we were contacted by this committee for an opinion because this was our first government and if that goes through, we will have more arguments for other countries, European or non-European, to push further with supports and the added value they could have in national legislation.

Chairman

I must say I am proud that we are the first country to reach out to Mr. Ayoub to get his expertise on this matter. Does Deputy Murnane O'Connor have a question?

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Yes. First, it is great that we are the first country. It goes to show our dedication and commitment to this for the surrogates and the families. How can we apply the principles in practice to surrogacy arrangements to ensure they are upheld? That would be the main thing. How do we ensure this? How can they guide us on this?

I thank the witnesses so much. I have been listening. We are going from one committee to another and it is difficult. It is great that we are the first.

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

This is a very good question. We have had continuous reflections on whether there would be a need to develop further complementary guidance. We have the principles, but would there be a need to go into implementation handbooks or guides that also provide more detail on promising practices that exist in certain country contexts? This is a constant reflection we have had throughout the drafting process and that we keep on having.

The starting point would be to go through the principles, which I guess many committee members have already done, and maybe identify the concerning areas, for instance, if this would be feasible with the current national legislation or not and what would be needed in terms of changes to be introduced. On many aspects, the principles are operational. They talk about procedural safeguards. They talk about competent authorities. Would it be feasible to introduce a focal point, an authority, that is responsible for surrogacy matters, that has some prerogatives with regard to monitoring and that could be also the focal point to collaborate with other legislation. At the beginning, a committee member mentioned that the State is being faced with Irish nationals who still go abroad and come back with a child. The principles have some good implementation points that the committee can work with but, of course, with additional resources, we would be able to develop much more guidance and go a little further on how to implement concretely the principles.

I am not sure I responded to the Deputy's question.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Ms Woellenstein did and I thank her. I understand.

It is a learning curve for us as well. It is important we implement the best policy that we can. I thank the witnesses.

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

This has been a very useful engagement. It is worth noting that the principles are aspirational, and until such time as they are embedded in an international agreement, we will have to deal with the imperfect and take the principles as guidance. They will certainly be influential in our thinking as a committee in our recommendations for Irish law, but we must also wrestle with that imperfect.

Last week, we had before the committee a former UN rapporteur who talked about the surrogate mother needing to be recorded on the birth certificate, yet we have the difficulty that we in Ireland cannot prescribe what is going to be on a birth certificate in another jurisdiction, and another jurisdiction may have legal frameworks that allow and oblige the intended parents to be recorded on the birth certificate. Currently, for parents leaving a country with a baby to come home, there are mandatory reporting elements obliged by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs as part of applying for an emergency travel document for that child. The parents must contact the health board to notify it that the child is about to arrive into the jurisdiction. They must then notify the courts to expect that there are going to be legal proceedings and the parents must give an undertaking on that. We need to have a mechanism, possibly within the Irish courts system as part of that mechanism, whereby there is a mandatory notification at the point of travelling home to oblige registration on a surrogacy certificate or surrogacy register and which aligns with a pre-conception agreement or phase - something along those lines. That is probably going to be a suggested workaround from me for the fact we must deal with the imperfect and yet want to make sure the child has the right to know everything about himself or herself. Have the witnesses seen models of that? In their consideration, how do we deal with the fact we cannot legislate extrajudicially for another jurisdiction?

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

The Senator has asked a very challenging question. At the very beginning the principles foresaw that it would be in the best interests of any child born through surrogacy to have the surrogate mother as the legal parent at birth. Then throughout the drafting process, and having consulted different experts and practitioners, the principles developed and were not at all prescriptive on that point. If the Senator takes a look at the principles on legal parenthood and parental responsibility, it distinguishes between different state approaches that are possible in this regard. In the case of states that determine by the operation of law at birth that a person is already a legal parent, then the question is what happens once this legal parentage should be transferred. The position the principles take right now is to take into account these different approaches and say that, whatever the approach, the child needs to have at least one legal parent at birth and after that we can talk about the transfer of legal parentage.

The principles have developed a lot, and then there is the principle on birth notification, registration and certification. This is principle 12 where we try to deal with these questions around registration and certification. As we said at the beginning, we consulted donor-conceived persons and surrogate-born persons. There were different opinions with regard to their birth certificates. Some people found it extremely important to have the name of the surrogate mother on their birth certificate, at least the original one. Others felt it was not important to them because the intending parents were their parents. We looked at where lessons were learned with regard to the integrated birth certificate, which exists for some adoptees in some states. For example, in Australia there are forms of these integrated birth certificates. It is really a birth certificate specific for adoptees and that traces the name and identity of the birth parents as well as the adoptive parents. This integrated birth certificate model was considered and is dealt with to some extent in principle 12. This principle says there should be updates of birth records, and of course birth records should always be kept up to date, but there might be a need to develop them further or have an additional certificate for surrogate-born persons. It is an encouragement to go this far but we know there are different views and positions held by the persons concerned, namely, donor-conceived persons and surrogate-born children.

Senator Mary Seery Kearney

The integrated birth certificate sounds like a super model for us. How does that preserve a child's right to privacy? For a child to commence school, a birth certificate must be produced. How is the child's right to privacy preserved in that case in order that he or she is not discriminated against? I ask because it is the child's story ultimately whether there is a donor. It is the child who should always have the right whether to disclose such information to others. If we end up with an integrated birth certificate, that right of disclosure is removed from the child.

Ms Jeannette Woellenstein

Principle 12 also deals with that. Taking into account that birth certificates in some contexts are used for school, health insurance and accessing different services, there should be a separate document the child or person can use freely and that it is not necessarily required for doing certain administrative steps or procedures, especially to avoid discrimination, as the Senator has said. It concerns not only a person's right to disclosure but also the right to non-discrimination. It is a right not to share with the world, school or health insurance that this is a person who has been born through surrogacy.

Chairman

We have come to the end of questions. I thank the witnesses for engaging with us and for their work in this area, because it is important we have an international framework to which countries can work. I hope the delegation, in their next meeting with a country, will be able to point to Ireland and say Ireland has managed to tackle this complex issue and create a robust system that protects everyone involved.

The joint committee adjourned at 12.19 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Thursday, 2 June 2022.