THE GOVERNMENT has today approved policy and legislative proposals on international surrogacy and the recognition of certain past surrogacy arrangements.
Key principles underpinning the proposals are the protection of the rights of all children born as a result of surrogacy arrangements an the safeguarding of the welfare of surrogate mothers.
The intention is that, once drafted, the legislation provisions in respect of international surrogacy and past past surrogacy arrangements (which will need to be further approved by government) will be inserted into the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022 at committee stage.
The policy approach proposes the a two-step process be introduced to allow for the recognition of parentage in future international surrogacy arrangements, encompassing pre-conception approval by the Assisted Human Reproduction Authority and a post-birth court process for the granting of a Parental Order for Surrogacy.
Those undertaking international arrangements will be required to meet the legal criteria both in the jurisdiction in which the surrogacy is intended to take place, and also the criteria to be specified in Irish legislation. The legislation will correspond largely with the conditions to be met for a permitted domestic surrogacy agreement.
In line with the JCIS Final Report and the domestic surrogacy provisions of the AHR Bill, surrogate mothers cannot be paid more than the reasonable receiptable expenses which are incurred.
A process will also be introduced to allow the possibility for the recognition of parentage in respect of surrogacy arrangements – both domestic and international – undertaken prior to the commencement of the AHR Bill, as long as some key criteria are met.
These criteria will include, in particular, that the surrogacy was not unlawful at the time in the relevant jurisdiction, it was a purely gestational surrogacy (the egg not provided by the surrogate mother), and the surrogate mother has provided her consent to the granting of a Parental Order for Surrogacy.
The process includes safeguards for the protection of the rights and welfare of all parties to a surrogacy arrangement: the child (including their identity rights), the surrogate mother and the intending parents.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said:
"The policy and draft outline legislative proposals approved by government today have he potential to provide hundreds of Irish families with a route o formal recognition by the State of the surrogacy arrangements they have undertaken, or will undertake, in other jurisdictions.
"We have endeavoured to implement, in so far as possible and appropriate, the proposals of he Special Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy and have accepted the majority of the Committee's recommendations."
An issue of central importance in proposing legislative measures for transfer and assignment of parentage in relation to past surrogacy arrangements is that such a process will result in the severing of the pre-existing and constitutionally protected legal relationship between the surrogate mother and the child to whom she gave birth.
The proposals follow an inter-departmental group which reported legislative amendments in the summer.
