A special Oireachtas committee to consider legislation for international surrogacy will be asked to protect vulnerable women from exploitation by commercial interests, government sources have indicated.
Plans to set up a single purpose committee to tease out the complexities of overseas surrogacy arrangements were confirmed yesterday in a joint statement from the ministers for justice, health and children — Helen McEntee, Stephen Donnelly and Roderic O’Gorman — who will bring a memo to cabinet in the coming weeks triggering the move.
McEntee and O’Gorman met campaigners for legalisation of international surrogacy outside Leinster House yesterday and confirmed privately to the group that the Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) Bill currently being drafted at the department of health does not cover international surrogacy.
The lobby group, Irish Families Through Surrogacy (IFTS), said unregulated commercial surrogacy should be banned and Ireland should only allow international surrogacy from countries such as the US, Canada and Ukraine where the practice is well-regulated. Members staged a demonstration outside the Dail in protest at the omission of international surrogacy from the AHR Bill.
The ministers’ statement yesterday said that Paul Gallagher, the attorney general, will prepare an issues paper in consultation with relevant ministers and their officials to assist the special joint Oireachtas committee in its deliberations.
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Cathy Wheatley, spokeswoman for IFTS, said she was not recognised as legal parent to her two-year-old twins, Ted and Elsie, in Ireland because they were born to a surrogate mother in Ukraine.
In the Ukraine, she and her husband Keith are registered as Ted and Elsie’s parents on their birth certificate, but Irish law would only recognise their surrogate mother Ivana — with whom they are in regular contact — as the children’s mother. Keith is recognised as he is the biological father.
Said Wheatley: “We are not asking them to legalise international surrogacy, we understand that it’s a minefield. What we’re asking them for is to create a pathway to parenthood for us, like in the UK.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs have issued guidelines for any children born to international surrogacy on how to get them back to Ireland. The government facilitates this happening. What they haven’t done is legislate for it.”
She said IFTS shared government concerns about commercial surrogacy and the potential exploitation of vulnerable women.
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The attorney general’s paper will set out the current legal position on international surrogacy and possible options for dealing with issues arising from commercial surrogacy. It is expected to be given a time-limited remit of four months to make recommendations on how to legislate for overseas surrogacy.
The committee’s recommendations “will then be taken into account by the minister for health as the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill progresses through the legislative process”, the ministers said.
“Specifically, it is expected that any necessary legislative provisions which arise out of the report of the special joint Oireachtas committee will be inserted into the Bill at committee stage,” they said.
IFTS and other groups campaigning for surrogacy legislation yesterday issued a joint statement protesting the government’s “continued failure” to publish the AHR Bill. The statement was signed by LGBT Ireland, the National Infertility Support and Information Group, the Independent Living Movement in Ireland, Rainbow Families and Irish Gay Dads.
They said: “Hundreds of Irish children born through surrogacy remain inexcusably vulnerable and unprotected by being denied a legal relationship to one of their parents. Many Irish children are nearing or are over 18 years of age and their legal relationship with their second parents remains unresolved.”
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Kathleen Funchion, Sinn Féin spokesperson on children, said the government had been found wanting on international surrogacy. Failure to address the issue would mean the bill would not be fit for purpose for Irish parents who had either used the services of a surrogate in another jurisdiction or were considering it.