Ms Moninne Griffith:

They highlighted the many legal gaps affecting same-sex families and how those gaps played out and impacted on the day-to-day lives of the children growing up in them. Out of this conference, a group called Believe in Equality was set up by the young people themselves. Since then, they have been working with us in Marriage Equality to advocate for equality for children like them. One of them is a board member of Marriage Equality and the committee will probably have seen some of them share their stories in the media.

One young woman who shares her story was conceived with donor sperm and born to her two doting mothers. She grew up in Ireland with two loving parents but the law as it stands only recognises her biological mother as her parent even though her other mother planned her, went through the process of her partner getting pregnant, the pregnancy and the birth, raising her as her own very much-loved child. There was, and still is, no way for her mother to become her legal parent. She cannot even adopt her as same-sex couples are barred from adoption because of the marriage requirement nor could her other mother become her guardian so she could not even give permission for medical procedures or school trips. Now that this young woman is grown up, although she is no longer at risk in respect of these gaps, she worries about her parents and their future. Will she be able to make decisions about both of her mothers' health care if one of them gets sick or becomes dependent on her in the future? This Bill offers families like her family clarity around these issues. It means they will have the legal protections they need because it will for the first time recognise them as parents and children and reflect the reality of their lives.

The main points of our submission therefore are that we welcome the Bill as a positive step to protect children all over Ireland including those growing up in same-sex families by recognising their actual parent-child relationships. While it should be remembered that the vast majority of potential parents accessing adoption and assisted reproductive services are heterosexual, we welcome the Bill’s proposal to extend the definition of parent to include parents of children conceived through assisted reproduction. We also welcome the Bill’s proposal to open up adoption to same-sex couples, bearing in mind that single lesbian and gay people are already eligible to apply to adopt and same-sex couples can and do foster children all over Ireland. We welcome the Bill’s proposal to recognise and regulate surrogacy arrangements in Ireland.

I would therefore urge the committee to support this important legislation and ensure that it is enacted urgently so that our children can have their families recognised and protected just like anyone else's family.