Irish-Canadian same-sex couple slam outdated laws after son cannot get Irish passport
In Ireland, the Children and Family Relationship Bill doesn’t include sections dealing with donors for all same-sex families
By Steve Brown
An Irish-Canadian same-sex couple have slammed outdated laws after their son was denied an Irish passport.
Jay O’Callaghan and Aaron O’Bryan both provided sperm to fertilise the donor egg which was implanted in the surrogate who gave birth to their son Jake in Toronto.
However, as the couple don’t want to know whose genetic material was passed on to their child and the dads want Jake to be a dual citizen, however, they received a call from the Irish government asking about their biological father.
“We never want to know,” O’Callaghan told CTV News Channel. “We’re his dads.”
Jake’s DNA would have to be submitted to an Irish court to prove who the father is and without that proof, the surrogate and her partner could be classed as his legal parents in Ireland.
If either of Jake’s dads are identified as the biological father, the other would have no parental rights in Ireland.
In Ireland, the mother of a child is the one who gives birth to the child or a female adopter, however and if O’Callaghan and O’Bryan were in a heterosexual marriage, their son would have no problem getting an Irish passport.
“It seems quite unfair that just because we are two men that we would have to do something like that,” O’Bryan added.
“We feel we are now being forced to go down this route of DNA testing, which is not something that we ever wanted to do,” said O’Callaghan.
Despite Ireland passing same-sex marriage legislation in 2015, the country’s Children and Family Relationship Bill doesn’t include sections dealing with donors for all same-sex families.
O’Bryan added: “We haven’t had a definite answer yet. We don’t know what position we are in right now.”
“We passed same-sex marriage three years ago,” O’Callaghan added. “Families like ours are still being excluded.”