The Equality for Children group want to greatly expand the Children and Family Relationships Act which, they say, leaves out 60pc of LGBT families.
The Act, passed in 2015, downgraded the importance of biological parenthood in Irish law, replacing it with the notion of ‘intentional’ parent.
The group, however, says that the 2015 legislation does not cover LGBT parents who have children via at-home insemination, from a known or an anonymous donor, if they were born abroad and all male LGBT couples, as the legislation does not cover surrogacy.
Parents who fit the above criteria cannot name both intentional parents on their children’s birth certs. Under the law at present, two women can be named as the parents of the same child on the birth cert, leaving out the name of the father.
The group has been campaigning for a year and has met with Minister McEntee and Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman.
“While huge progress has been made over the past year and there has been great engagement with the government, there has been a huge level of communication there which has not been there in previous years but there still is a huge amount left to do, so our campaign has only really started,” said Ranae Von Meding, CEO of Children for Equality.
