The Supreme Court allowed an appeal over the registration of twins born through a surrogacy arrangement, holding that the Civil Registration Act 2004 requires the woman who gave birth to be registered as their mother. It set aside the High Court order. The judgment addressed statutory interpretation only; it did not establish a broader framework for surrogacy or decide the constitutionality of the relevant provisions.
The twins’ commissioning parents were a married couple. The wife could not become pregnant because she did not have a uterus. Her sister carried embryos created using the wife’s ova and her husband’s sperm, following treatment at a fertility clinic in Dublin. The twins were born in 2013 and went into the commissioning parents’ care with the birth mother’s consent.
The birth mother was registered as the twins’ mother. An application to have the genetic mother registered instead was refused. The children, through their father and next friend, then sought a declaration under section 35 of the Status of Children Act 1987. The High Court made an order that was appealed. The Supreme Court judgment, delivered by Justice John L. Murray on 7 November 2014, records that the birth mother’s consent did not determine the statutory question.
Justice Murray said the 2004 Act uses “mother” without providing for two possible mothers or making registration dependent on another person’s consent. In his interpretation, the term carries the meaning it had under the earlier birth registration legislation: the woman who gave birth. He found no provision in the 2004 Act that made genetic connection the test for registration, and said the 1987 Act’s provisions on blood tests did not change the meaning of “mother” in the registration law.
The court also noted that Irish law had no legislation authorising or regulating surrogacy, while surrogacy itself was not unlawful as such. Justice Murray said the wider questions about the status, rights and welfare of children, birth mothers and genetic mothers involved policy choices for the Oireachtas. The appeal concerned the meaning of the registration statute, and the Supreme Court’s order was to allow the appeal and set aside the High Court order.