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€2.1 billion - How much extra the government could have to play with after offloading its IMF debt.
1,554,700 - The total number of pigs in Ireland, according to the Central Statistics Office this week. Just in case you were wondering.
130,000 - The number of Syrian refugees who have fled into Turkey in the past week. For comparison, this is as many as Europe has accepted in the past three years.
30,000 - The number of applications this year to attend the winter solstice at Newgrange. Fifty names were drawn out of a massive drum on Friday.
41 bales, 1 tonne, €80 million, 4 arrests - The figures involved in the seizure of a huge amount of cocaine from a yacht off the coast of Cork in the early hours of Tuesday.
13 - The number of days that John McNulty spent on the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art before resigning on Thursday.
11 - The number of cars that a man is accused of setting on fire in Northern Ireland before he was caught.
9 - The number of people who have complained to Apple about their new iPhone 6 bending, according to the company.
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Fantastic article about the regulatory shortfalls of the legislation. More needs to be done in this jurisdiction to assist and protect the rights of prospective parents in this process
I have to say (and I am most certainly NOT religious) that when people go through yeara of trying and rounds of IVF etc… there has to be a point where they accept that, sadly, they are unable to have children. Egg donation and surrogacy etc is a step too far in my opinion.
@Sinead Mooney: aren’t you lucky to be so accepting of your fate and that of others? Egg donation and surrogacy etc is only the business of those involved in my opinion
@Anonymous Education: No, each to their own absolutely but just saying I personally cannot understand it. If people want to go down that road and have the strength to do it, fair play to them – I couldn’t. But they have to live with the legal repercussions i.e. this is messy!
One may be inclines to believe that “Irish policy makers are in fact trying to discourage domestic surrogacy”. In this very Catholic country, I can see at least one reason why it may be discouraged. Having seen a good friend go through the trauma of childlessness, I began to see surrogacy as a viable option. Unfortunately, costs will be prohibitive for many couples. You might think they should simply adopt, but it is not easy and fraught with potential problems.
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