Hi all, We promised to keep you up to date with any news/correspondence we have received from any of the government departments we have been in contact with, so today we got two letters in. One letter was from Conor Cleary, Private Secretary to the Minister for Justice and Equality, Minister Charlie Flanagan. The letter simply acknowledged the receipt of our petition. There were no further comments made about possible future correspondence, nor any statements addressing the issues we voiced concerns about. The second letter we received was from Lisa Hughes, Private Secretary to Minister Katherine Zappone, acknowledging receipt of our letter concerning the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015. Again, as we were in our original email to Minister Zappone, we were redirected to Minister for Health Simon Harris. However, during a recent interview with Journalist a Louise Walsh, she was able to obtain a statement from the press office for the Department of Health. That statement is as follows: *** With regard to the registration of the baby's birth the commencement of Parts 2 & 3 of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 will put in place for provisions for this couple to seek a declaration of parentage in the District or Circuit Court. This declaration will then enable them to seek re-registration of the birth of their child, with both parents named on the birth certificate. However it must be noted that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is required to commence Part 9 of the CFR Act in order to put this process into place. Matters relating to the issuing of passports are the responsibility of the Department of Foreign Affairs and we cannot comment on that issue. The Minister and his officials are acutely aware of how necessary the provisions of the Children and Family Relationships Act are and how eagerly they are awaited and officials in the Department of Health are undertaking the work necessary to facilitate the commencement of Parts 2 & 3 of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015. Making regulations in an area of such sensitivity is a complex and detailed matter and officials in the Department are focused on ensuring that the processes required by Parts 2 and 3 of the Act are as effective and robust as they need to be for the sake of the families concerned. The Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 makes provisions in relation to the registration of births of children born as a result of donor-assisted human reproduction procedures. In cases where a child has been conceived prior to the commencement of Parts 2 & 3 of the Act, Sections 20-23 make specific provisions for the retrospective declaration of parentage in the case of donor-conceived children, while Section 95 in Part 9 of the Act allows for re-registration of the birth of a donor-conceived child and the issuing of a new birth certificate in relation to that child. Section 20 of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 applies to a child: 1. Who was born in Ireland, 2. Who was born as a result of a Donor Assisted Human Reproduction procedure carried out before Section 20 of the CFR Act is commenced, regardless of where the procedure was performed (either in Ireland or abroad) 3. No person other than the mother (the woman who gave birth to the child) is registered on the birth certificate 4. The donor remains unknown to the mother (a sperm donor sourced from a sperm bank, on an anonymous or non-anonymous basis, would be considered unknown) Once those 4 conditions are satisfied a couple will be able to jointly make an application to the District Court for a declaration of parentage to be granted in the case of the second parent: the declaration will deem that person the parent of the child, with all the legal rights and responsibilities which parentage entails. This declaration of parentage will then be used to re-register the birth of the child and a new birth certificate can be issued in relation to that child naming both parents as the parents of that child. Note that the provisions above will not come into effect until Parts 2, 3 and 9 of the Child and Family Relationships Act 2015 are commenced. The Minister hopes to be in a position to lay the necessary Regulations before the Houses of the Oireachtas as early as possible in 2018. *** We have already received a letter from the Department of Employment Affair and Social Protection and we are awaiting further correspondence from them. We will be sending on this press statement to Minister Zappone and her Department (Dept of Children and Youth Affairs) so that they may correctly inform any other people marking queries relating to the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015. We understand it will take time to implement all the relevant changes but this more than three years later and we are seeking those changes to be implemented NOW. We would also like to ask, if you are in a similar position or you are affected by the delays in this Act, please write to the Irish Governmant and make yourself heard. There is power in numbers and if they see how many people are in limbo, it might speed up their efforts to commence implementation of these changes. We hope to hear more from other Departments soon and as promised we will keep you up to date. We are still overwhelmed by all the support we have received. We can do this! High fives to you all, x