I rise with extremely good news. In the past three and a half years, while I have been here, I have regularly spoken about the families who have been created through surrogacy, children born by surrogacy and the future children to be born by surrogacy. I am pleased that the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, has brought the legislative amendments to the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill to the Cabinet today and I have every expectation that they will be approved because they have already been through quite a process.

It is important that I pay tribute to the members of Irish Families Through Surrogacy, who are in the Gallery this morning. They are Ciara Merrigan, chair, Cathy Wheatley, spokesperson, Sara Byrne, public relations officer, and Andrei Balcanasu. I also remember Lisa Cahill who was unable to make it this morning. We look forward to receiving a briefing from the Department of Health later and finding out exactly what this looks like. We already know, however, that the recommendations of the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy were that there be a pre-conception process that safeguards the rights and needs of the surrogate and the rights of the children to their identities, process and natural lifelong relationship with both of their parents. The legislative amendments will also provide a retrospective provision for those of us who already have children via surrogacy and to ensure the recognition of the second parent. Currently under Irish law, only the biological father has the opportunity to have his lifelong legal relationship safeguarded and the second parent, be it a mother or second dad, has no means by which to get that security.

It is important to note that many people have gone through a lot of losses by the time they take the surrogacy journey. They do so looking forward to holding their baby, safeguarding everything about that baby, cherishing that baby in the way they want to and honouring everyone in the process. We hear about the odd outlier cases in the surrogacy journey in which the surrogate's rights are not upheld. No one enters surrogacy with a view to doing anything other than respecting and cherishing the surrogate for our child for all our lives. The first thing I do on my child's birthday is to think of the surrogate and honour her and the extraordinary position she has put us in as a family. A lot of campaigning has been done by Irish Families Through Surrogacy and Irish Gay Dads. They have worked tirelessly to bring us to today. We still have a process to follow. The amendments are due to be discussed in the health committee in January and the process will begin. I await the thumbs up from the Taoiseach's office, as soon as a decision is made at Cabinet. I especially congratulate the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and the Ministers, Deputies McEntee and O'Gorman, but Deputy Donnelly headed this up in the past year and worked with his officials, so I congratulate him on all the hard work.

We extend céad míle fáilte to the group and thank them for their advocacy and work.

I join Senator Seery Kearney in complimenting the group in situ and recognise her for the work she has done. Of course, others have rightly identified that there was an issue that needed to be resolved, but her perseverance, personal interest and legal knowledge and expertise have been very helpful in ensuring parents like her and others will be treated appropriately by Irish law and not be disenfranchised as they have been to date. That is great work. If she had done nothing else, although she has done a lot more, that is something she could be rightly proud of.

Today at COP28, we hear of the difficulties of OPEC and other fossil fuel-dominant countries holding the rest of the world to ransom. It is disheartening, but a strong team is there fighting the cause and we hope they will have some success. We can do more here at home, however, to address this issue and I am conscious floating offshore wind is one of the great potentials this country has, not just for economic development here but also to power large parts of Europe from the rest of Ireland without the need for carbon emissions. Other countries in Europe are moving ahead. Scotland and other parts of Britain and Portugal have embraced the opportunity and are steaming ahead. We have been talking about it for a long time but in terms of actual flesh on the bones, we have been relatively slow to make progress.

I would like a debate on this in the new year. We talk about bringing power onshore by 2032, but a lot has to happen. All the infrastructure has to be built and port development has to take place. We have to build wind turbines and the platforms on which they will reside, well out into the Atlantic Ocean. That takes time, and I do not feel as though the level of co-ordination is there to make it happen. The vision is there and the policy is moving but I do not believe we have the operational approach. I appeal to the Government to look at embedding a unit within the IDA to co-ordinate this activity with all the stakeholders and interest groups to try to bring it to fruition. I am also conscious that, from a policy perspective, we need to move. A third phase of the future framework policy is scheduled for quarter 1 of 2024, and it is important that part of that will ensure the designation of the marine area plans be undertaken. In addition, I believe a 400 MW floating wind demonstrator, to be included in the renewable energy support scheme, should form a part of that phase. If we are to get to our target of bringing the power ashore by 2032, we will need to have taken steps well in advance of that.

I concur with the Senator's remarks regarding Senator Seery Kearney and her work and thank her as well.