Wednesday 24th of May 2023

“Professor Golombok’s research proves that children’s well-being is much more dependent on the quality of the relationships they have in their families than the specific family type they are raised in.” Damien Peelo, CEO of Treoir announced today.

Treoir welcomes Dr. Susan Golombok, Professor Emerita of Family Research and former Director of the Centre for Family Research UK at the University of Cambridge and author of ‘We Are Family’ as their keynote speaker this year’s AGM..

Her research examines the impact of new family forms in the UK on parenting and child development, specifically lesbian mother families, gay father families, single mothers by choice, and families created by assisted reproductive technologies including in vitro fertilization (IVF), donor insemination, egg donation, and surrogacy.

“This is an especially important point for Ireland right now. For female same-sex couples looking to start a family, the legislation for donor-assisted human reproduction is still relatively new, only coming into effect in 2020.” *

“The government is currently drafting legislation for children born through surrogacy.

We know they have planned a referendum to ask the Irish people if families should be based on marriage anymore. This is a welcome acknowledgement of the changing nature of Irish society and family life and the expansion of how we define family” he said.

“These policy changes reflect evidence such as Dr Golombok’s and the UN Rights of the Child: regardless of their family type, children should have the same rights and children should be loved and cared for by both parents where possible” he stated.

ENDS

Treoir’s CEO (Damien Peelo)  and Communications Officer (Sinéad Murray) are available for interview. Contact Sinéad at 0858504710 / sinead@treoir.ie .

*Treoir published a booklet for female same-sex couples and donor assisted human reproduction available here: Female-Same-Sex-Couples-and-Human-Assisted-Reproduction-Leaflet.pdf (treoir.ie)