Mr. Gearóid Kenny Moore:

I have three examples that may be of interest to the committee. In my previous input I spoke about how we did not succeed in having our children through the Canadian system but, ultimately, in our case and having been through four years of stress and hardship, a friend of mine who lives in England came forward and agreed to carry our children for us. We initially had twins just over three years ago and then six months ago, our little daughter Anne was born, again through the same surrogate supporting us. I am in the very privileged position of being a stay-at-home parent to three kids aged three or under. It is mayhem.

The reality is I am only legally connected to one of my children and I have no rights, pretty much, with respect to our newborn daughter. When I bring her to the green to play or go for a walk, all of my neighbours pretty much have the same level of rights and privilege towards her as I do because I cannot claim guardianship for her. I will speak a little about that topic of guardianship right now.

As I alluded to, one cannot as the second parent claim guardianship of a child until he or she reaches the age of two.

As our colleagues from Irish Families Through Surrogacy explained, that means I cannot participate in any of her medical decisions or her vaccinations. It is a pretty big slap in the face, to be quite honest. I cannot even do things like open a bank account for her. If we go into our local bank, as two same-sex male parents we stand out a little bit more than a heterosexual couple with three kids under the age of three. It is immediately obvious to the people we are talking to in institutions like banks or passport offices that there are two same-sex parents raising kids. The bank obviously has a duty of care towards its business and has to ask that only the legal parent can open a bank account or savings account for our daughters to deposit the gifts they got from their aunts and uncles.

It gets more severe. As we touched upon, when our children, who are connected to us through guardianship, reach the age of 18, most parents celebrate that day but I will dread it. When the candles are blown out on that cake I will no longer be the parent or guardian of my kids. If I want to leave them an inheritance, I will have to get a special dispensation from the Revenue Commissioners because we are legally unconnected. I am now in the position where my elderly mum is in a nursing home and I can see very clearly the importance of having the right to make guardianship for our parents. Touch wood, I will live to be an old man as well. I would want my kids to be able to make decisions for me, but currently they cannot do that. Once they turn 18, they will have no automatic right to care for me. In the event I had a sudden illness where there was not an opportunity to put in place appropriate arrangements to look after my welfare, my guardian children would not be allowed to sign me into a nursing home or consent to a medical procedure because we would just be considered as two people who happened to share a house for 18 years. Guardianship is a really inferior option because it does not kick in until the child is two and is extinguished at 18, basically obliterating the memories that we are a family.

We touched on international surrogacy but we should talk a little bit about how domestic surrogacy works when it comes to birth registration. This was mentioned already in respect of the fact Senator McGreehan and her partner were not married at the time their child was born. When birth registration occurs in a surrogacy case here in Ireland, the only person who has automatic legal rights to be considered a parent is the surrogate, regardless of whether she is biologically connected to the child. Earlier in the session we talked about protecting surrogates. Actually, typically surrogates do not want the responsibility of parenthood. They want to support a family to have their children and then to get on with the lives and families they have themselves. Our State forces them to go on the birth certificate and to take on the role of the sole legal parent at the birth of their child. The biological father has the opportunity to go on the birth certificate but it typically only occurs with the consent of the surrogate. Even when that is concluded and the birth certificate is issued, the father still has no automatic rights around custody or guardianship. They must also be sought. The birth registration process in Ireland as it stands at the moment places an undue burden on surrogates because it puts them in the position of being the automatic primary carer for a child who is not necessarily connected to them. It leaves them in a situation - it has never happened and touch wood it does not happen within the jurisdiction - whereby the intended parents could actually say they do not wish to care for this child and leave the surrogate with the responsibility for the child. They are some of the issues.

On a personal level, our children were born in the UK. They have British registry documents. My guardianship is a really tenuous relationship to have with my children. It is something that genuinely upsets me.