Ms Sandra Irwin-Gowran:

The short answer is "No" as we do not have numbers for that. Single people can apply to be considered adoptive parents in Ireland, but a gay or lesbian couple cannot, regardless of whether they are in a civil partnership. Anecdotally, we know there are many lesbian and gay couples who are foster parents and, in some cases, the child or children become eligible for adoption but the couples are unable to adopt the child. The child is, therefore, denied the right to the family he or she could have if the couples were able to adopt jointly. I do not know how many people are affected, but from speaking to social workers in the HSE, I know they deal with many lesbian and gay couples. The service that lesbian and gay parents are providing as foster parents is really important and would be a huge loss if it did not exist. When we speak of adoption for lesbian and gay couples, for the most part we are talking about adoption of a child they are already parenting. It may be that one of the couple is the biological parent of the child and the other is not. The couple may want to adopt the child in order to become a secure family unit. There are some small studies indicating statistics that can be forwarded to the committee.