Children may be born into a “stateless legal limbo” if proposed legislation regulating donor-IVF does not include a legal framework enabling international surrogacy, a solicitor specialising in the field has said. Almost no country in Europe allows commercial surrogacy on the grounds that it leaves low-income women open to exploitation and commodifies babies.

Annette Hickey warned the Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy yesterday that the State “cannot run that risk”. The committee has heard almost entirely from people who favour the practice and from almost no critics.

Ms Hickey recommended the inclusion of a regulated statutory framework for international surrogacy in the legislation as well as inserting retrospective recognition of parentage in the Bill for all existing children born through surrogacy, both domestic and international.