Last week the Cabinet gave Health Minister Leo Varadkar authority to draft new laws to regulate assisted human reproduction.
Under the bill, commercial surrogacy is likely to be banned and at least one person involved in the surrogacy arrangement will have to be a genetic parent.
The legislation will also look at issues such as IVF and egg and sperm donation.
Minister Varadkar spoke to Newstalk Breakfast this morning about what is likely to be addressed in the legislation.
"What is absolutely going to be the case is that we won't allow surrogacy to happen for money or for the profit of the individual involved. It's going to be something that's altruistic," he said. However, reimbursement of 'reasonable expenses' is set to be allowed.
In terms of specifics, the Health Minister said, "there will be a court process to allow the parentage be transferred to the genetic parents or commissioning parents, if everybody agrees that's what they want."
The proposed legislation also envisages that an individual's stored sperm, egg or embryo could be used after their death. "If somebody has passed on, their partner could still use their frozen sperm or frozen egg, but only if they gave consent for that to be done before died before they died. There would also be a requirement to have counselling and a bereavement period after your partner dies," the minister explained.
It is likely to be next year before the laws are brought before the Dáil and Seanad. Minister Varadkar said, "the more and more you read about it, the more and more complicated ethical and legal dilemmas that arise. But there have been reports on this since 2005... and I think legislation is long overdue."
You can listen to the interview below:
