I welcome that the Christmas bonus is being paid this week. I also welcome the €5 million announced by the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, for community pantos. I spoke to her about Striking Productions in Carlow, a community panto which has lost a great deal of funding.

Christmas is about families. Why is the assisted human reproduction Bill being delayed? We need to recognise families engaged in international surrogacy. Our society now knows there are many ways to become a family and we must recognise that the law must catch up in that regard. All families are equal. When can we expect the Bill to come before the House? Many families in my area have contacted me about it. It is urgent. I ask that the Bill be brought through the House as soon as possible.

This is not being delayed - not deliberately, anyway - but it has been going on far too long. I think that when I was Minister for Health, in 2014 or 2015, we published the broad outline as to what the Bill would look like, and that is five or six years ago. I know that a great deal of work has been done in the Department of Health since then with the assistance of the Department of Justice. We are very keen that this should be the Government that legislates for this area, where there are too many lacunae at the moment. My understanding is that a special committee is due to be established by the Oireachtas. That committee will try to gain consensus and tease out some of the very difficult issues, including complicated ethical issues, that arise from assisted human reproduction. I hope we will be able to get that committee set up in the new year and then legislate on foot of that.