The Assisted Human Reproduction Bill, which includes a legal framework for both domestic and international surrogacy, has passed all stages in the Oireachtas.
The legislation, which has concluded its passage in the Seanad, will also regulate more frequently-undertaken AHR treatments such as IVF (In vitro fertilisation) or ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection).
AHR involves treatments or procedures which involve the handling of gametes or embryos, or both, for the purposes of establishing a pregnancy.
The Bill establishes an Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority which will license fertility clinics; oversee and enforce the strict statutory provisions regarding gamete and embryo storage, research and testing and administer a National Donor Conceived Person Register and a National Surrogacy Register.
It will also provide access to information for children born through assisted human reproduction both in Ireland and abroad.
Future surrogacy plans will have to be authorised by the Regulatory Authority, ensuring that both the surrogate mother and intending parents have independent legal advice, counselling and support before entering into a surrogacy arrangement in a clinic and country that must uphold human rights, and where the surrogate mother gives her consent post the birth of the child.
Fine Gael Senator Mary Seery Kearney welcomed the legal framework contained within the legislation for both domestic and international surrogacy.
In a statement, she said Ireland is now the first country to legislate for a framework that enshrines the Verona Principles, which are internationally recognised and set out by the International Social Services organisation - a UN-recognised organisation - which ensures that an ethical surrogacy is undertaken in the best interests of any child or children born.
"Crucially, this Bill also provides that the parents of those children already born via surrogacy can apply to the High Court for parental orders to secure their lifelong relationship with their children," she said.
"For me, today is a culmination of ten years of painstaking advocacy to bring about a legal framework to protect the rights and enforce the responsibilities of everyone involved in a surrogacy journey; the child, the surrogate mother, and the intended parents. Applications for parental orders, including my own, will hopefully commence this autumn and the comfort and relief this gives to families is immeasurable.", she said.
Critics of the bill have expressed their opposition to the legislation.
Independent Senator Ronan Mullen said there was a "sinister disregard for the will of the public around the recognition of the role and importance of mothers" in the Bill.
He said the legislation provided that two intending parents were not required and that a single male aged 21 or over may be an "intending parent" and enter a surrogacy agreement with a woman in Ireland or overseas.
He said the Bill as it stands allows for the possibility that the genetic father of a child could be registered as that child's mother.
The bill would exploit poor women and commodify children, he added.
The Assisted Human Reproduction Bill will now be sent to the President for consideration, before it is signed.
