Minister for Health establishes Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill today established the Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority (AHRRA). The Minister has appointed Professor Deirdre Madden, of the School of Law, University of Cork (UCC), as the first Chairperson of the Board.

Speaking today, Minister Carroll MacNeill said:

Minister Carroll MacNeill also announced her intention to appoint a further seven people as ordinary members of the Board of the AHRRA as follows:

• Ciara Merrigan, Julie Kenneally, David Crosby and Brian Tobin for a term of four years; and
• Roisin Molloy, Samantha Doyle and Mary Wingfield for a term of three years

Minister Carroll MacNeill added:

Professor Madden said:

The Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Act 2024, which was signed into law in July 2024, is a complex and far-reaching piece of legislation that establishes a regulatory framework for a wide range of assisted human reproduction and surrogacy practices for the first time in Ireland.

The Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority (AHRRA) is a new State agency established under Section 122 of Part 9 of the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Act 2024.

The AHRRA will be a statutory, independent, evidence-based, regulatory agency. Its function will be to protect, promote and, insofar as practicable, ensure the health and wellbeing of (a) children born, or to be born, as a result of AHR treatment, (b) persons undergoing, or about to undergo, AHR treatment, and (c) intending parents (section 123(1)).

Section 126(1) of the Act provides that the AHRRA shall have a board consisting of a Chairperson and ten ordinary members.

Biographies of the Minister’s intended appointments

Professor Deirdre Madden

Deirdre Madden BCL, LLM, BL, PhD, MRIA is Professor of Law at University College Cork specialising in healthcare law and ethics. She has a Master's degree in surrogacy and a PhD in the law relating to assisted human reproduction, and she has published widely in these and other medical law areas. Professor Madden has been a member of many national advisory committees, expert working groups and regulatory bodies in the areas of bioethics, patient safety, and healthcare regulation including the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction, the Commission on Patient Safety, the Medical Council, the Health and Social Care Professionals Council, the Health Information and Quality Authority, the National Advisory Committee on Bioethics, the HSE National Consent Group, and the Expert Advisory Group to the Citizen’s Assembly on the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. She has been an Ethics Reviewer for the European Commission for over 20 years and has been a Visiting Professor in the United Kingdom (UK), United States (US), and Australia. Professor Madden was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2020, and was Deputy Chair of the Health Service Executive and Chair of its Safety and Quality Committee from 2019-2024.

Ciara Merrigan

Ciara has worked in healthcare for over 26 years and has a MSc in Healthcare Management (TCD). She has worked in several nursing roles including clinical, management and educational across the public sector in both acute and community settings and is currently serving at Executive Management level as a Director of Nursing. Ciara has the experience of reporting to a Board and also serving as a Board Member of a not-for-profit sector organisation. Ciara also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Critical Care Nursing, a Certificate in Lean Green Belt (UCD) and a Diploma in Leadership and Quality in Healthcare (RCPI, Dublin). She is extremely passionate about the delivery of person-centred effective care and has cultivated strengths in key areas vital to leading successful healthcare teams providing positive patient experience including both clinical and corporate governance. Ciara is a Director and Co-Founder of Irish Families Through Surrogacy and is highly motivated about advocating for an ethical surrogacy model to ensure safeguards for surrogates, children born through surrogacy and their families.

Dr Julie Kenneally

Julie Kenneally, PhD, holds a degree in Genetics and a PhD from University College Cork. She began her career as a post-doctoral research scientist, during which she lectured, mentored postgraduate students, published extensively, and secured competitive research funding from the Health Research Board (HRB) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). Julie later specialised in assisted human reproduction (AHR) and is a senior clinical embryologist, certified by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). She has contributed to several national firsts in andrology and embryology, including the birth of the first baby in Ireland following a MicroTESE procedure. She has also served on the Executive Committee of the Association of Irish Clinical Embryologists. With a strong foundation in regulation and compliance, Julie holds a certificate in Quality Assurance and has served as quality manager for a group of AHR clinics. In this role, she led multiple regulatory inspections, including the licensing of new tissue establishments, and oversaw success rate monitoring, compliance, licence variations, and daily quality management across all sites. Julie has also engaged with the Department of Health on the implementation of the Children and Family Relationships Act and contributed to the development of national legislation governing AHR. She currently serves as the AHR Programme Manager at Cork University Maternity Hospital, where she is leading the establishment and implementation of Ireland’s first publicly funded AHR unit.

Professor David Crosby

Professor David Crosby is a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and Head of Department of Reproductive Medicine at the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, Clinical Director and Board Member of Merrion Fertility Clinic, Dublin and Associate Academic Professor of Reproductive Medicine at University College Dublin. He is the Clinical Lead of the HSE Dublin and South East Reproductive Medicine Fertility Hub and the Programme Director of the only European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) accredited subspecialist training programme in Reproductive Medicine in Ireland at the National Maternity Hospital and Merrion Fertility Clinic. Professor Crosby was awarded a M.D. from UCD, the British Fertility Society Young Clinician Award and the prestigious Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RCOG) Harold Malkin Prize for his research in Reproductive Medicine. He has a significant interest in leadership and quality improvement and was awarded a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree with Distinction through Edinburgh Business School.

Dr Brian Tobin

Dr Brian Tobin is an Associate Professor in Law at the School of Law, University of Galway. He holds an LL.B., LL.M, and a PhD in Family and Child Law from Trinity College Dublin. His research specialises in Family and Child Law, with a particular emphasis on the legal position of surrogate-born and donor-conceived children. Dr Tobin has published extensively in leading peer-reviewed academic journals on surrogacy, AHR and the law, and his recent book, The Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Relationships: Emerging Families in Ireland and Beyond (Oxford: Hart, 2023), recognised in the foreword by Mr Justice Gerard Hogan of the Supreme Court as ‘scholarship at its finest in terms of avant garde family law’ was shortlisted for the Society of Legal Scholars’ Margaret Brazier Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in 2024. He has provided expert oral evidence on surrogacy, AHR and the law to the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, and the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy. Internationally, as a national expert for Ireland, he has provided oral evidence to the U.K. Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Surrogacy (APPG Surrogacy) and he was invited to contribute to the development of the Verona Principles, a set of international ‘best practice’ guidelines designed to ensure the protection of the rights of children born through surrogacy. At University of Galway, he has served as Deputy Head, School of Law, and as a member of the university’s Research Ethics Committee. Dr Tobin was recently named Legal Educator of the Year at the LEAP Irish Law Awards 2025.

Roisin Molloy

Roisin Molloy is currently Managing Director of Merck Healthcare in Ireland and has held this position for 5 years. She is also a strategy board member of the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association where she chairs the Regulatory Affairs group. She is a board member of the Neurological Alliance of Ireland and a trustee of the Merck International Pension Scheme, she has a diploma in Corporate Governance from the Corporate Governance Institute.

Roisin is a registered general nurse and trained in St. Vincent’s University Hospital. She trained as a midwife in the National Maternity Hospital where she obtained the Elizabeth O’Farrell medal. She is an oncology nurse specialist and obtained a Higher Diploma in Oncology nursing in UCD.

Dr Samantha Doyle

Dr Samantha Doyle is a Consultant Clinical Geneticist with a special interest in Perinatal Genetics. She is the Director of Perinatal Genetics and Genomics at the National Maternity Hospital. Dr Doyle is the Co-Chair of the Prenatal Genomics Group of the British Society for Genetic Medicine (BSGM). She is a member of the Professional Stakeholder Committee of the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority in the UK. Dr Doyle's medical degree and Medical Doctorate are from University College Dublin. Dr Doyle also holds a Master of Science in Leadership from RCSI and a Master of Science in Genomics from the University of Birmingham. Dr Doyle has an interest in medical ethics and law and is a lecturer and MSc supervisor on the RCSI MSc in Ethics and Legal Medicine.

Professor Mary Wingfield

Professor Wingfield worked for 24 years as a Consultant Obstetrician Gynaecologist at the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin where she established Merrion Fertility Clinic in 1999 and was Clinical Director until 2022. She was subsequently Clinical Lead for AHR services at the National Women and Infants Health Programme of the HSE. She is currently Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at University College Dublin and the clinical representative for Ireland at ESHRE (European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology). Prof Wingfield is passionate about fertility in all its facets, including fertility preservation, research and the development of national frameworks and legislation. She is a strong advocate for public funding and equitable access to fertility treatment and is disappointed by the commercialisation in the sector. She was a member of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction and has written several fertility-related position papers for the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. She has acted as an expert witness in High Court cases regarding assisted reproduction and has spoken at the Oireachtas regarding AHR legislation and surrogacy. She authored The Fertility Handbook, Gill Press 2017, a guide to fertility and infertility.