The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by the Adoption Authority of Ireland and affirmed a High Court decision that a Colorado stepparent adoption order for twins could be recognised in Ireland. The Court concluded that entering the order on the Register of Inter-Country Adoptions would not contravene an existing principle of public policy.
The case concerned twins born in Colorado in 2014 following a surrogacy arrangement involving their genetic father, C, his husband, D, a gestational carrier, E, and an egg donor, F. A Colorado court recorded C as the twins’ sole legal parent before their birth. In February 2015, it made a stepparent adoption order in favour of D. The couple live in the United States and have connections to Ireland.
D applied in 2017 to have the adoption recognised in Ireland. The Adoption Authority referred legal questions to the High Court under section 49(3) of the Adoption Act 2010. The High Court concluded in 2021 that there was no reason to refuse recognition. The Authority appealed directly to the Supreme Court, arguing that the order raised public policy concerns, including payments associated with the surrogacy and the children’s identity rights.
The Supreme Court distinguished recognition of the children’s adopted status from enforcement of the agreements behind their birth. It said parts of the agreements would be unenforceable under Irish law. In particular, it found that the egg-donor agreement’s commercial payment element conflicted with section 19 of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015. It also described the gestational carrier agreement as unenforceable in part because it sought to change parental status by contract, involved commercial surrogacy and contained intrusive restrictions on the carrier’s personal autonomy. The Court was not asked to enforce those agreements.
However, the Court found no clear public policy rule requiring the foreign adoption order itself to be refused recognition. It noted that there had been no payment in respect of the adoption itself. It also said that the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 would provide the twins with tracing and contact rights if the adoption were entered on the register. The Court found no public policy objection based on private placement or the timing of the gestational carrier’s consent, given its conclusion that she freely consented and that the process had been supervised to some extent by the Colorado courts.
The Court treated the children’s best interests as the paramount, though not necessarily decisive, consideration. It noted that no party had suggested recognition would be against their interests, and that Colorado and English courts had found the relevant orders served those interests. The Supreme Court dismissed the Authority’s appeal and affirmed the High Court decision, for somewhat different reasons. Its ruling addressed this order and did not enforce the surrogacy agreements.