I move:
That leave be given to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015; to provide for expanded pathways to parentage for parents of donor conceived children.
My Bill was drafted with great help and support from the organisations LGBT Ireland and Equality for Children. I give particular credit to Ms Maeve Delargy, Ms Claire O’Connell, Mr. Pádraig Rice and their colleagues, who are in the Public Gallery to watch this debate and with whom I was outside Leinster House just a few moments ago. I also wish to mention baby Ferdia, who is less than three months old and also joined us to mark the introduction of this important Bill.
In May 2015, more than 1.2 million people voted in favour of marriage equality. On Saturday, thousands, including me, marched on the streets of Dublin to mark Pride 2023 and to celebrate diversity and the vote for equality, which sent a message of a new Ireland emerging, one that was tolerant, inclusive and welcoming of LGBTQ+ people. It heralded a new era in which our country would be a forerunner for equality and a beacon of hope around the world.
The marriage equality referendum was about more than just the right to marry. The will of the people and the ambition were clear. People wanted to see LGBTQ relationships and families treated equally by the State.
There is now an onus on us in the Oireachtas to realise that vision and ambition but unfortunately, eight years on, we still see gaps remaining in the law. The enactment of the Children and Family Relationships Act in 2015 was a welcome step in the right direction for equality because for the first time two same-sex parents could be listed on a child's birth certificate so that LGBTQ+ headed family units became recognised by the State. However, both intended parents could only be listed on a child's birth certificate if the circumstances of birth fell within the strict parameters of the legislation. We know from research by Dr. Lydia Bracken from the University of Limerick that many children born into LGBTQ-headed families are conceived or born outside those narrow parameters and are therefore prevented from having a legal parent-child relationship, a relationship of equality, with both parents. The former Special Rapporteur for Child Protection, Professor Conor O'Mahony, produced a report in 2020 reviewing children's rights in the context of donor-assisted human reproduction and surrogacy. He pointed out that the current framework has a negative impact on children's rights to equality.
At present, four categories of children born through donor-assisted human reproduction are prevented from forming a full and equal legal relationship with both their female parents. These are children conceived with a known donor prior to May 2020, children conceived in non-clinical settings, children conceived outside of Ireland and children born outside of Ireland. The place of birth and the mechanics of conception should not determine whether a child can have a full legal relationship with his or her parents. There are no legal, ethical or policy reasons for children not getting full and equal family rights.
The Bill I am presenting today seeks to remedy this situation for all of the children in each of those four areas. It offers a process whereby an application can be made to court to ensure the granting of a declaration of parentage and it introduces a presumption of maternity to offer equality to children born within both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. It also introduces a paramountcy principle to ensure that in all court applications under the Children and Family Relationships Act, the best interests of the child will be the paramount consideration. Finally, it rights the wrong of the exclusion of the use of known donors from retrospective declarations of parentage which was based, in the Labour Party's view, on a faulty legal premise that parentage could only be transferred if the genetic father was unknown.
These may seem or sound like minor changes but in reality, the passage of this legislation and the granting of full parentage would have a profound impact on children and parents, particularly when children are sick, need to establish parentage, require passports and when it comes to tax or inheritance status. The Bill will also provide important legal confirmation of what is a practical reality and would end the legal limbo whereby hundreds of children are left with no way to establish a legal relationship with both of their parents who love and care for them daily and who are, at present, so-called legal strangers. The Government's Assisted Human Reproduction Bill, currently on Committee Stage in the Dáil, could have been the ideal vehicle to address the lacuna in the law that this Bill seeks to resolve. As it stands however, we have seen delays with that Bill and no move by the Government to introduce the necessary amendments. That is why I am introducing this Bill. I want to work with the Minister, the Taoiseach and the Government to ensure that the provisions in this Bill are made law, either through amendments to a Government Bill or by means of a stand-alone Bill. Otherwise, the equality the people voted for in 2015 will not be realised and babies like Ferdia will not have the legal equal status to which they should be entitled in our law.
