{"id":471072,"date":"2026-05-06T10:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471072\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T10:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T10:18:12","slug":"parents-of-surrogate-children-in-call-over-new-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471072\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents of surrogate children in call over new law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parents of children born through surrogacy are calling on the Government to commence the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Act 2024 without delay.<\/p>\n

The parent-led, voluntary advocacy and support group, Irish Families Through Surrogacy (IFTS), will hold a briefing for Oireachtas members this afternoon to highlight the need for Irish surrogacy law.<\/p>\n

Under existing Irish law, children do not have full legal recognition of their relationship with both parents, which IFTS says is creating significant legal and practical challenges for families.<\/p>\n

The Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Act was signed into law by the previous government in July 2024 and a commitment to commence the Act is part of the current Programme for Government.<\/p>\n

The primary purpose of the legislation is to regulate fertility clinics to ensure that assisted human reproduction and related areas of research are “consistent and standardised”.<\/p>\n

However, many of the provisions of the 2024 Act have not yet been brought into force, and certain surrogacy arrangements are not covered under the legislation.<\/p>\n

Read More: Couple’s story highlights concern over surrogacy loophole<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Supplementary legislation has been drafted to ensure legal protection for all children born through surrogacy, mainly in relation to outstanding issues of parentage and citizenship.<\/p>\n

This has required further consideration and consultation with the Office of the Attorney General.<\/p>\n

The amending legislation is understood to be at an advanced stage, led by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, along with officials from the Departments of Health, Justice and Children.<\/p>\n

The establishment of an Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority (AHRRA) is viewed as a vital component by the Government to ensure regulation of the sector and that process is under way.<\/p>\n

‘I’m recognised as her guardian, but I’m not her mother’<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Mary
\nMary Seery Kearney, with her daughter Scarlett, after the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill was passed in 2024<\/p>\n

Former Fine Gael senator Mary Seery Kearney’s daughter Scarlett was born via a surrogate.<\/p>\n

She said that while she is legally her daughter’s guardian, she is not legally recognised as her mother as she did not give birth to her.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9\u2019s Morning Ireland, Ms Seery Kearney said there is always the worry of something happening to her daughter\u2019s biological father, because if that were to happen, her daughter would not have a legal parent in the State.<\/p>\n

“I’m not recognised as her parent. I’m recognised as her guardian, but I’m not her mother,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said that when it comes to signing forms, she does so as her daughter\u2019s guardian “even though I have always been her mother.”<\/p>\n

Ms Seery Kearney said her daughter says that she “is born from my heart because she couldn’t be born from my tummy.”<\/p>\n

She added that in relation to issues around citizenship and residency for children born through surrogacy, legislation has been passed and signed by the President, but it needs to be commenced.<\/p>\n

She said that Part 12 of that “would deal with the legal rights of our children to have recognition of both of their parents”.<\/p>\n

Ms Seery Kearney said she believes that the regulatory authority does need to be in place, but there seems to be no urgency in establishing it.<\/p>\n

“The amending piece of legislation languished in the Department of Justice for months, months with very little action happening on it.<\/p>\n

“Our daily lived lives are that our children are discriminated against in the rights to inheritance, in the rights to their parents. And that needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency and can be if Part 12 has commenced.”<\/p>\n

Lack of rights a ‘huge concern to all parents’<\/b><\/p>\n

Liam Aherne and his husband are the fathers of twin boys born through surrogacy, and he will be at today’s meeting with Oireachtas members.<\/p>\n

He said his sons will be starting creche shortly, and because their legal guardian is their biological father, the other father has no consent to sign anything and is not recognised as a legal guardian.<\/p>\n

He added that if anything did happen to the biological father, despite being married and caring for the children, the other parent has no rights.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s a huge concern to all parents that have children born through surrogacy,” Mr Aherne said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parents of children born through surrogacy are calling on the Government to commence the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-471072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}