A Clare mum is very relieved to finally have legal rights to her twin children, born via surrogate in India.
The woman expressed her delight after Judge Patrick Durcan made her a legal guardian of the children, at the Family Law Court in Ennis, this week.
“Today is a very good day”, she said.
The children were born to an Indian surrogate mother and brought to Co. Clare soon after their birth, according to The Journal.
They are now three-and-a-half years old.
The woman and her partner embarked upon surrogacy after a failed attempt at IVF.
The children were conceived using the sperm of the woman's partner, and eggs donated by another Indian woman.
By having legal guardianship, the mum now has rights to make decisions on the children's health, welfare and up-bringing.
She gave a statement outside the court, saying: "I am their mother. Today doesn’t take away from that but, legally, it does give me legal status to act for them if anything did happen to their father, or if we were caught in a situation where consent had to be given quite quickly. I can do that now."
"It does mean a lot to us. It was a worry and a concern up until now.”
She also called on the government to act on introducing laws on surrogacy in the Republic of Ireland.
"Today is a very good day for us, but the government still has to deal with the situation so people like us don’t have to keep going back into court to ratify our position," she said.
