A row has broken out on the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children over proposals by Fianna Fáil members to defer a controversial draft report on the provision of assisted human reproduction services pending further public consultation.
The chairman of the committee, John Moloney of Fianna Fáil, said that he would propose at a meeting of the committee next Tuesday that interested parties be allowed to appear before a sub-group examining the issue prior to a final report being drawn up.
The proposal prompted outrage from Opposition members on the committee when it was put forward in private session yesterday morning.
The sub-group of the committee, which has a Government majority, has produced a draft report which backs, in many cases, the relatively liberal approach to this area put forward last year by the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction.
The draft report of the sub-group supported the recommendation of the commission for the establishment of a new body to regulate infertility treatment.
The Oireachtas sub-group also agreed with the commission that assisted human reproduction services should be available without discrimination on the grounds of gender, marital status or sexual orientation.
It also supported allowing the donation of sperm, ova and embryos, subject to regulation.
The Oireachtas sub-group, in its draft report, however, rejected the recommendation of the commission that surrogacy should be permitted and that surrogate mothers should be entitled to receive reimbursement of expenses.
The Oireachtas sub-group believed that surrogacy should be prohibited "due to the commercial nature that has evolved in the US and, to a lesser extent, in the UK".
The draft report also agreed with the commission that appropriate guidelines should be put in place for dealing with frozen healthy embryos which would include donating them to other recipients or for research or allowing them to perish.
However, the Oireachtas sub-group said that the implementation of such recommendations would require clarification of the constitutional status of the embryo.
On one of the most controversial recommendations of the commission, that the embryo formed by in vitro-fertilisation should not be legally protected until placed in the human body, the Oireachtas sub-group said that this would also require clarification of the constitutional status of the embryo.
The Irish Times understands that when the draft report went before the full Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children in private session yesterday, Fianna Fáil members proposed a further consultation process.
The move was strongly opposed by Opposition members.
Last night Mr Moloney said that initially he had believed that the Oireachtas sub-group would need to meet various interested groups but later came to the view that the commission had already conducted a widespread consultation process.
However, he now believed that the sub-group would, after all, have to allow interested parties to have an input before the final report was presented to Cabinet.
Mr Moloney said that some members of the Opposition had sought to have the report sent back to the Cabinet from the committee as quickly as possible with a view to creating political difficulties for the Government.
