The Iona Institute has welcomed a ruling by the Supreme Court earlier today to allow a man who donated his sperm to a couple – enabling one of them to have a baby boy – to have access to the child.
Director of the Institute, David Quinn, said that the decision “respects the rights of both fathers and children. A biological father has a right to know and have access to his child, and a child has a right to know and have access to his or her biological father.”
The sperm donor father agreed in 2005 to donate sperm to a lesbian couple and signed an agreement with them that he would have the role of ‘favourite uncle’ and access would be at the discretion of the couple.
The child was born in 2006. The man subsequently went to the High Court seeking guardianship and access to him.
The High Court then found that the welfare of the child was best served by the little boy continuing in the custody of the couple and that the man should not get any court ordered access describing the lesbian couple involved in the case as “a de facto family” who enjoyed family rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
He also ruled that the only relationship between the man and the child was a biological one and he did not enjoy those rights.
However, the five judges of the Supreme Court today found that, while man was not entitled to guardianship of the three-year-old boy at this time, it would be in the child’s best interest for his father to have access to him.
Referring to the High Court ruling that the lesbian couple had family rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, Chief Justice John Murray added that European Court of Human Rights rulings were not directly applicable in Ireland and its influence is moral and political rather than real.
Crucially, Ms Justice Susan Denham ruled there was no such institution as a ‘de facto’ family in Ireland and that the lesbian couple were not a family under the Constitution. She also found that there was benefit to a child, in general, to have the society of his father and was satisfied that the High Court also gave insufficient weight to this factor.
She found that the High Court had given insufficient weight to the fact that the man is the biological father of the child and she said he had rights as a natural father.
Responding to this aspect of the ruling, Mr Quinn added: “It is clear the Government must now move to regulate the Assisted Human Reproduction industry, and to do so in a way that is fully child-centred.
“The best way to do this is to enshrine in such any regulations the right of a child to be raised by their mother and father. Anything else fails children, and puts the wishes of adults ahead of the rights of children.”
The court ruled that if it was not possible for the parties to agree on access, the matter should be determined by the High Court. The man was in court but did not want to comment afterwards. He hugged his lawyers repeatedly.
They said he was ‘very, very happy’ with the decision.