A same-sex couple living abroad who applied for an Irish passport for their son say they are “shocked” and feel “discriminated against” after being told he is not entitled to Irish citizenship despite his mother being Irish.
Robyn Ormond-Collins, originally from Butlerstown, Co Waterford, and her Welsh wife, Evie Collins, who both work in the NHS in south Wales, applied for an Irish passport for the boy when he was born in August.
The couple, who are in their 30s, applied for the travel document for him on the basis Ms Ormond-Collins was Irish.
They conceived their son through IVF using Ms Ormond-Collins’s embryo. Her wife, Ms Collins, carried the baby and was the birth mother in what is termed “shared motherhood”.
READ MORE
They began IVF treatment about three years ago and they said the birth of their son was “the best day of our lives”.
Despite Ms Ormond-Collins being the genetic parent, they were told by the Department of Foreign Affairs on Friday, almost four months after applying, there was “no apparent basis” to conclude their son was entitled to citizenship by descent through Ms Ormond-Collins.
Under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, the department said citizenship through descent to children born abroad was granted through the child’s “birth mother”, the child’s genetic father or the child’s adoptive parents.
The department offered to leave their application open pending the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal on a similar case, though warned a judgment may “not result in changes to how the law is applied”.
“I was angry getting the email. I felt like they were saying I wasn’t his parent just because I didn’t give birth to him,” Ms Ormond-Collins said.
“It felt like he was being excluded. He’s only four months old. Is this what he’s going to be put up against for his life, having two mams?”
She wanted Irish citizenship for her son as she was “proud to be Irish”.
“It felt archaic. There’s an image of Ireland being a modern society, but it still relies on laws from the 1950s,” she said.
Saying she was “shocked” too, Ms Collins said: “It’s Robyn’s baby genetically. How can his citizenship be questioned? His mother is Irish.
“We were both so upset. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever felt really discriminated against and the thought that he’s going to have that throughout his life is just heartbreaking.”.
Their son has a British passport, but the couple are looking for an Irish one for him, too.
In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs said it was “a complex legal area” subject of an appeal to the Supreme Court.
It said it had written to those whose applications may be affected by the outcome of the appeal, offering to keep their application on hold until a ruling is made.
Ms Ormond-Collins and Ms Collins, who met almost 15 years ago at university in Cardiff, said they would leave their son’s passport application open until the Supreme Court judgment.
Earlier this year, the State appealed a High Court ruling that found failings in how Irish citizenship laws treated children born abroad to same-sex parents.
In one case, a passport was refused for a Spanish-born child, despite an Irish citizen being their genetic mother but not the gestational mother.
The High Court had found the Minister for Foreign Affairs erred in interpreting the 1956 Act as excluding her as the child’s parent.
In an application to appeal the ruling, the Minister and other state parties said the appeal brought “no prejudice” to the affected families, but said there was a need for certainty about who qualified as a parent or mother.
