A member of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction has criticised as “discriminatory” a plan to impose an age limit of 47 on women accessing such treatment, including the use of donor eggs, embryos, and IVF, but no comparable limit on men. Mary Wingfield, a professor in the Merrion Fertility Clinic in the National Maternity Hospital, said “The upper age limit of 47 for women is reasonable because the risks in pregnancy increase with age,” but added: “Having no upper limit for men but one for women is discriminatory and, while it will cause disagreement, we need one [for men] if we are putting one in for women.”

However, David Walsh, a doctor with the Sims IVF clinic, did not accept that an upper age limit for men was necessary. “Older men are less fertile but they can father a child into their sixties or seventies,” he said. “An age limit on men would ignore biology.”

That difference in biology is also recognised in plans to limit sperm donors to men under 40, while egg donors cannot be older than 35.