Fears surrogate parents will be last to get parentage status

Lauragh and Oisín Goggin from Wexford with their son, Christopher, 17 months, and born via surrogacy in Ukraine. Picture: Patrick Browne

There are growing fears that babies already born through surrogacy and now living in Ireland will be last to have their parentage recognised under new laws, a leading lawyer in the field said.

Under new legislation, currently going through the Oireachtas, intending parents — those who cannot conceive and who choose surrogacy — will have their status dealt with first, after attending training.

However, a leading surrogacy and fertility solicitor said children already born through surrogacy before the new laws are enacted may now face an extra waiting time before they can be recognised.

The Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022 which will include recognition of parentage in surrogacy agreements is to be enacted into law later this year, but currently there is no legal basis for domestic or international surrogacy in Ireland.

'Concern'

Solicitor Annette Hickey told the Growing Families seminar in Dublin the lack of legal clarity for parents with a child already born through surrogacy is a “concern”.

She said: “When you’re looking at retrospective declaration of parents, there appears to be a suggestion that retrospective shouldn’t commence until prospective commences.

“Prospective is future, and prospective requires the establishment of regulatory clarity and your pre-approval from the training course before you can start your process.

“There are concerns there. Our hope is that when the legislation is enacted that retrospective will commence immediately. There appears to be a very strong possibility that the government is going to delay the commencement of retrospective.

“That’s concerning because prospective requires the establishment of a regulatory authority. We hope common sense will prevail.

“Since 2000, we’ve been looking for legislation in this country, the recommendations were published last summer.

“The government approved them, which was very very, significant, they approved the proposals that would include international surrogacy in Irish legislation and that’s massive, and also retrospective declarations of parentage.”

Regulatory authority

There are currently no official statistics for the number of children born through surrogacy either in Ireland or abroad.

However, if the surrogacy laws are enacted later this year a regulatory authority will be established, with figures compiled annually.

In a recent interview with the Irish Examiner, Lauragh Goggin from Co Wexford said she has no legal rights to her son Christopher, born via surrogacy in Ukraine.

Irish laws currently only recognise the woman who gives birth to the child, as well as 17-month-old Christopher’s father, Oisín.

A spokesperson for the Department of Heath told the Irish Examiner: “As previously indicated, the [department] is not in a position at this juncture to provide details in respect of any finalised criteria to be utilised for determining eligibility for accessing advanced Assisted Human Reproduction treatment”.