What This Firm Does — and What It Refuses to Do
Richard O’Shea is a solicitor at Mary Molloy Solicitors, a firm established in 1981, and a TEP of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. The work here is the Irish legal side of a surrogacy arrangement: advising intending parents on what each route means under Irish law before decisions become expensive to reverse; agreements, with the surrogate separately advised by her own solicitor; declarations of parentage and guardianship; birth registration; the documentation and travel problems that arise when a child is born abroad; what the 2024 Act will require once commenced; and the wills, consents and succession planning that the current gap makes urgent. What the firm does not do is equally important and is stated in full on every page: it is not an agency, does not match, introduce or recruit anyone, does not advertise on anyone’s behalf, does not recommend clinics or agencies or accept any payment or referral fee from them, and takes no part in facilitating any payment beyond its own fees. That is partly because the 2024 Act is built on the prohibition of commercial surrogacy. It is mostly because a solicitor with commercial interests tangled into an arrangement cannot give the candid advice this area demands.
The Succession Point Almost Nobody Raises
The parentage gap is usually discussed as an emotional and practical problem — whose name is on a form, who can consent to treatment, who can collect from school. It is also, quietly, a succession problem, and it is the consequence families are least often warned about. Where a child is not recognised in law as the child of one of the people raising them, that runs through intestacy rules, through the construction of wills that use words like “my children” without defining them, through inheritance tax treatment, and through what the child can claim in that person’s estate. Families discover this at the worst possible moment, usually after a death, when nothing can be fixed. It is fixable in advance — carefully drafted wills, correctly defined classes of beneficiary, guardianship secured where it is available, and clear documentation of intention — and none of it depends on the Act being commenced. That combination of family-law position and estate practice is the reason this site exists, and the inheritance page covers it properly. Tax is not advised on here: gift and inheritance treatment goes to your accountant or tax adviser and to Revenue’s own guidance, before anything is signed rather than after.
A Position You Would Like Explained Properly?
Whether you are considering surrogacy or your child was born years ago, the first conversation is about establishing where you actually stand under Irish law today - and what can be done that does not depend on the Act being commenced.
Call 01 5827148