There were emotional scenes outside Government Buildings as parents of children born through surrogacy wept with joy at the news they could become their child’s legal parents.
Fine Gael Senator Mary Seery Kearney admitted that she and other mothers of surrogate babies “cried a lot” as she said that she hopes she will be recognised as her daughter’s mother by her ninth birthday.
Her daughter Scarlett, who was born via surrogacy, is seven years old.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman and Justice Minister Heather Humphreys brought a memo to Cabinet on Tuesday containing amendments to the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022.
The amendment will recognise parentage in respect of certain past domestic and international surrogacy arrangements.
There are currently no laws in Ireland on surrogacy, leaving many families in limbo.
The surrogate mother who gives birth to the child is the child’s legal mother and guardian. This is the case even if she is not the biological mother of the child.
Senator Seery Kearney’s daughter Scarlett was born through a surrogate in India in May 2015.
Speaking outside Government Buildings, the Fine Gael politician said that her family will now have legal protection.
“Over the last two years, especially, a lot of families poured open the vulnerability of their and the precarity of their position,” Ms Seery Kearney said.
“Today that ends. Families like mine now have a way to have legal recognition for our position as the only second parents that our children have ever known.
“There are families that have broken down and children are weaponised in that situation because their second parents have had no standing in law. That ends today.
“I'm very grateful to the families. We all cried a lot today.
“[They] have poured open their lives and the vulnerability that they live under and the need to have that connection with this child that they have gone to the ends of the earth to have because their love was so great for wanting to hold their precious baby.
“[My daughter] is seven.
“With a bit of luck, I probably won't make her eighth birthday, but certainly by her ninth birthday, that the law in Ireland will recognise me as her mother.”
Minister Donnelly said that parents of children born through surrogacy have had to live with “uncertainty, worry and concern”.
“These parents are these children's parents and they are now going to have that fully recognised in law,” he added.
A new agency, the Assisted Human Reproduction Authority (ARRHA), will have a list of approved countries and a list of approved agencies within countries for surrogacy.
People undertaking surrogacy arrangements will be required to meet the legal criteria both in the jurisdiction in which the surrogacy is intended to take place and the criteria to be specified in Irish legislation.
It is hoped that the legislation will be in place from next year.
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