Alan Shatter has launched a blistering attack on the Minister for Health - accusing him of misleading the public.

The former justice minister says Leo Varadkar is taking too much praise for his plans to overhaul Ireland's laws on surrogacy.

Shatter made his comments as the Dáil debated the Children and Family Relationships Bill - a bill he did most of the work for.

The minister welcomed the bill, but was furious that his plans to reform the surrogacy haven't been included - and says some children will be left in the lurch.

"They will be left in some sort of legal limbo, where the surrogate who gave birth - and agreed that she would not act as a parent with a child - maintains a legal relationship as mother," he said.

Shatter said this would mean that "the person who is actually acting as mother - who may have donated her ovum, for the conception of the child - is excluded from being the mother."

His comments came on the same day that Leo Varadkar announced his own plans to overhaul and regulate the surrogacy sector - including ban on all commercial surrogacy, requiring any arrangements to be altruistic. The laws are unlikely to be in effect, however, before the general election.

Shatter says the minister is wrong to take credit for moving to legislate in the area.

"I wish he would stop pretending that he is presenting some new crusade to address an issue that no-one, before he came along, was interested in addressing.

"It's misleading. It's misleading and it's unfair to members of the media and those interviewing him, who do not have the intimacy of knowledge of both the [draft] Bill published last January [under Shatter's tenure], and of this legislation."

Debate on the Children and Family Relationships Bill is continuing in the Dáil today and tomorrow. Among the bill's provisions is the right for same-sex couples to be considered for adoption. 

Shatter also criticised the bill for weakening the punishments on parents - mostly mothers - who refuse to allow estranged partners to access their children. He said this would allow children to be treated "like pawns".

The government aims to have the bill passed and in effect before polling takes place in the referendum on same-sex marriage.