I thank the Chairperson and the committee for inviting us back here today. I am the chairperson of Irish Families Through Surrogacy, a nurse by profession and a mammy to three-year-old Clara and Matthew, who were born through international surrogacy. I am here to speak to the committee on behalf of hundreds of families created through surrogacy across Ireland. I will start today by reading a message I received from Siobhan, one of our members. Siobhan is a radiographer from Donegal. With a diagnosis of severe adenomyosis, Asherman's syndrome and years of infertility, Siobhan and her husband, Paul, turned to surrogacy as their last hope to create a family.
Siobhan is now mammy to a four-and-a-half year-old girl - the half is very important - and to a baby boy born through surrogacy last November in the USA. She states:
Ciara, our houses should be empty, devoid of noise and mess and chaos and pieces of artwork strewn across the floor like our house is today. I shouldn’t be a parent and yet here I am with two of the most precious children. We are blessed and not a day goes by that I don't pinch myself that I am here in this situation. It is just amazing what surrogacy is, and what it has done for me, my husband and my whole family. It has been absolutely life changing and life saving for me, if I am to be perfectly honest. I am sure you and others understand this. I have been to some very, very dark places on my path but thanks to two amazing ladies, surrogates Triona and Lakyn, we have been able to succeed and thrive as a family. My husband and I completed every piece of research before taking that leap down this path. It is so important to us to be able to tell our children that we have been their mammy and their daddy every step of the way, including seeing off our embryos as they were being shipped from the Merrion Clinic to the USA.
The wish to raise a family is not an expectation. It is a shared hope for healthy, happy and rewarding lives. We wish for equal pregnancy partners, surrogates and donors who can share our hope and the experience of creating a new life: a baby, a child who needs the secure, loving and nurturing environment of a family to flourish. We believe our laws and regulations should be designed as an invisible protector and enabler of children’s well-being and their right to family and citizenship.
It is absolutely alarming that the proposed legislation does not include retrospective recognition as a means to create a legal parent-child relationship with their mother for those existing children born prior to the commencement of the Bill. Hundreds of children from every county across Ireland remain vulnerable in this regard. Many of these children will soon turn 18 years of age, or already have, and will lose the opportunity for a lifelong legal relationship with their mothers: the mothers who are their caregivers, who love them, raise them and want to fully protect them. This situation is clearly contrary to the best interests and welfare of Irish children and leaves them in a legal limbo. The importance for our children of creating that legal-parent child relationship on their social, emotional and psychological well-being is completely immeasurable. Irish Families Through Surrogacy is recommending an expedited route to parenthood for the protection of these children.
Irish Families Through Surrogacy's first piece of advice to any couple going down the road of surrogacy is to seek legal advice from a solicitor who has experience in this field. The solicitor in that first consultation will explain to the couple what is involved from start to finish. This can often be a very difficult meeting for the intended parents as it may be the first time they hear that the intended mother will not be recognised in Ireland, even if it is the intended mother’s own eggs that are used.
Our members are currently experiencing huge variation in the legal process, time taken and cost here in Ireland. As the committee has heard previously, some of our members have had a five-year wait to get the father's parentage through, leaving their children without a legal parent in this State for five years. This variation is dependent on the legal representation employed by the couple and also on their address for access to courts. Essentially, one could say it is a postcode lottery. There is also a variation in the process and in the courts used. Some solicitors and barristers are using the family courts and the Circuit Court and others are using the High Court. We are aware that the Courts Service is changing. We welcome this change. We would expect that this change would ensure a more streamlined specialist approach.
Intended parents availing of international surrogacy will also employ a legal practitioner in the country they choose. The legal practitioner engaged is independent to the surrogate mother’s legal practitioner. It is the role of this legal practitioner to ensure all contracts and affidavits are credible, and that the law, regulations, and best practices of the jurisdiction are fully respected. The international legal practitioner will prepare all documents and ensure they are translated, apostilled and retranslated, including birth certificates and documents required to exit the country and return to Ireland. The legal practitioner would also work closely with the Irish embassy staff.
The surrogate mothers is assigned an independent legal practitioner. Their role is to ensure that the surrogate mother is fully informed, gives informed consent to the process and fully understands the consequences of the law in their own country and the intended parents' country of origin. Irish Families Through Surrogacy recommends that all surrogacy contracts should be individualised, directly between parents and the surrogate, to ensure the relationship between the two parties starts early and is not intermediated. Having a direct contract with a surrogate who has independent legal advice would mitigate the chances of exploitation and ensure the best possible scenario for ensuring surrogate welfare. The legal support employed for the intended parents and the surrogate must be members of and governed by a regulatory authority in their own country.
It is our experience that there are robust processes and arrangements in place internationally for the verification of documents issued in the country of birth to ensure all parties are protected. This would include oversight from the legal practitioners, the court system in some jurisdictions, Irish embassy processes, and international passport control on exit.
With the introduction of legislation, Irish Families Through Surrogacy would see a role to provide advice and guidance on the entire process, and we would work in partnership with the assisted human reproduction regulatory authority and the Department of Foreign Affairs to support intended parents, and children born through the process, safely.