Ms Cathy Wheatley:

I will give practical examples of what families are facing. My colleague, Ms Merrigan, will then talk a little about countries that we can model

One of the main challenges we face from day to day is exemplified by the circumstances of one of our group members, who has two children. One was born naturally to the mother and the second was born through surrogacy. The current position is that the mother has a legal relationship with one child as a parent but not with the other. The family is effectively split in two in that way. Unfortunately, the father of the family has had a recent cancer diagnosis. One can imagine the stress and anxiety this causes on top of everything else. God forbid, if anything should happen, the second child would be left without a legal parent. It is gut-wrenching to think of the effect if anything were to happen. Any of us could be in this situation. We all sympathise with the family.

Second, during Covid times only one parent was allowed into hospital with a child. I experienced this recently, as did one of our members. Unfortunately, my little girl had Covid-19. We were very worried about her. She developed pneumonia, she was very sick, and we went to the hospital. I knew that I could not legally sign for her treatment if anything were to occur. I went to the hospital and sat in the car in the carpark and cried my eyes out because I could not be with my baby. I get a bit emotional about this because the reality is that I am her primary caregiver. My child was in the hospital with her much-loved daddy and he was doing everything he could, but she was crying for me, her mammy. I was on video chat trying to reassure her tell her it would be okay, and tell her daddy the answers to the questions the health professionals were asking, because I was with her most and was her primary caregiver. The anxiety and stress that causes for a family at a time of incredible worry are difficult to take. That is a personal example. Members can probably hear from me how much it affected my family.

Let me give another example. It pertains to another member of our organisation. Her children were left with no legal parent in the State for five years. The children got a declaration of parentage for their father just before they started school. The limbo they were left in caused so much anxiety and stress for them. Until the father got his declaration of parentage, the mother was not able to apply for guardianship. For five whole years, and longer in certain cases, children can be left with no legal parent in the State. It comes down to whether one goes through the High Court. It is kind of a postcode lottery, considering where you are in terms of the District Court, etc. It really leaves a child unprotected and vulnerable. All parents want to do is protect their children. As everyone knows, they will do anything they can.

With respect to vaccination, one mother was not allowed to consent to giving the Covid-19 vaccine to her child recently. Sometimes when we think about vaccinations and so on, we think about bringing babies for their first vaccination. We were not allowed to do that. The children's daddies had to go with them. Obviously, it is an emotional time and one wants to do everything one can. Even as time goes on — the kids are five or six years old, and some are seven or eight — the mothers are not allowed to consent for them to have a vaccination. It should be simple for them to do so. When broken down to what we deal with on a daily basis, it is hard.

Some women in our group live in fear because if anything were to happen to the relationship, they would have no legal rights to their children. Let us think about that for a second because it really leaves women in positions where they may have to stay somewhere they are not safe and is difficult for them. They need to be protected as well and in such a case they will not leave their children. Nobody knows what will happen in future and situations change but it really brings home to us that every family model is different. Nobody knows what will happen in each family model and, for us, it is really about our children. We do everything we can to protect them but sometimes we cannot because we do not have that legal relationship with them.

Ms Merrigan will speak to the question on best practice.