Ms Edel Byrne:

As Ms Lohan stated, it is forgotten that Ireland started out as being a sending country for intercountry adoptees. We are gravely concerned that the Irish intercountry adoption system has become a service for adults instead of a service for children. Adoption is not an adult right; it is about finding homes for children in extreme circumstances, whose immediate families, close relatives or wider community or fellow citizens cannot care for them.
In the Hague Convention, adoption is seen as a measure of last resort. Since Ireland's ratification of the convention, there has been a considerable outcry over the drop in the number of adoptions. We support the Adoption Authority's contention that its work should not be measured by the number of adoptions but, rather, by the quality and propriety of those adoptions. Mr. Nigel Cantwell’s opinion piece in the Irish Examinerlast September shows we cannot have it both ways in adoption policy. We have the article available for members.
Ireland is not out of sync with other receiving countries. Some journalists and certain broadsheet publications have reported that the numbers of children adopted into Ireland from abroad was 11 in 2012 when the actual number was in fact 117. Ms Laura Martínez-Mora, the principal legal officer for the Hague Conference on Private International Law, reflects those numbers in her documentation. Falling numbers of children available for intercountry adoption are becoming an international norm as sending countries develop their own domestic adoption systems.
I encourage members to review the Tristan Dowes case.The circumstances in question were cited in Trinity College’s Study of Intercountry Adoption Outcomes in Ireland and no action appears to have been taken as a result. The Adoption Rights Alliance reported this issue to Deputy Frances Fitzgerald when she was Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, and also to the Adoption Authority and the HSE, all to no avail. The HSE claimed it cannot monitor the success or otherwise of any adoption as it would be seen to be discriminatory. We have anecdotal evidence to show there is some breakdown in country adoption for some children in Ireland. Historically, Ireland’s adoption system has put the needs and wants of adults before those of children, resulting in a disturbing culture of entitlement, which is bolstered by a lack of courage on the part of many of our politicians and public figures who bow to calls for the re-opening of corrupt countries from which we used to adopt.
Ireland’s treatment of children in intercountry adoption has all the makings of the subject matter of a Ryan report of the future. The mere fact that the register of intercountry adoptions, by contrast with the register of domestic adoptions, is closed will make it next to impossible for adoptees or birth families to reconnect in years to come.
It seems clear we have learned nothing from our nation’s past and those with the power to influence and change ought to think about how they will be viewed in the court of history. Those individuals, institutions and organisations have a duty to pay attention to the needs of these children and listen to those of us who try to give them a voice, and they should have the courage to say no to the adults demanding the right to be parents.
We should listen to Interpol’s assistant director on human trafficking, an Irishman called Michael Moran, who has described illegal intercountry adoption as an example of human trafficking. No Member of either House of the Oireachtas will be able to stand up in ten years’ time and claim he had no idea of what was going on.