Ms Susan Lohan:

Let me refer briefly to Ireland's history of intercountry adoption as a sending country. It is worth referring to the practices that obtained from the 1940s to the 1970s in that regard. There is considerable evidence of corruption on the part of State actors and religious organisations in the movement of children to other countries. All of this is well exposed in Mike Milotte’s book Banished Babies. It is disturbing that, on foot of having that knowledge, we have proceeded to develop bilateral agreements of a lower standard than what is stipulated in the Hague Convention with so many countries that would feature quite prominently at the top of Transparency International's corruption index. I refer to countries in respect of which we would refuse or be reluctant to have trade arrangements because we simply do not trust their paperwork. It is disturbing that, with many of the sending countries, we have no idea how they will tackle the problems of adopted people coming back in the future to trace their relatives, as is absolutely inevitable. They will suffer many disadvantages because they will not even be able to translate their own birth records or original files. There is very little oversight of this.
We are also troubled by the fact that, in 2013, the former Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, sought to unpick some of the protective measures that had been set out in the Hague Convention, which we ratified in 2010. That has been criticised internationally, no less than by Nigel Cantwell, whose recent article was referred to by Ms Byrne.
We are also disturbed by the connection of intercountry adoption arrangements with trade missions that the Irish State undertakes. There have been a number of cases in which talks on bilateral agreements have been attached to trade missions. That only feeds into the narrative that children are really a commodity in this matter. On the actual narrative, we are concerned about comments in the print and televisual media that the case of adoptive parents who feel disappointed at the reducing number of children available for adoption warrants cross-party intervention at the very highest level. Mr. Nigel Cantwell and other experts in this area can readily attest to the fact that the decrease in the number of intercountry adoptions is a very positive development because it attests to the fact that countries that were previously sending children have developed more mature systems of catering for vulnerable and orphaned children in their jurisdictions.
I urge members to return to their parties and really caution fellow party members on taking at face value some of the lobbying on this issue. If the previous Minister for Children and Youth Affairs could amend legislation to accommodate 23 couples who wanted to adopt from a country not in compliance with the Hague Convention, surely the current Minister for Children and Youth Affairs could introduce the legislation we desire.

At this stage, we reckon there are about 100,000 adopted people in Ireland. Yesterday, we were pleased to meet the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Charles Flanagan, to discuss some of the terms of reference for the commission of inquiry into practices surrounding adoption in mother and baby homes. The Minister gave us an undertaking that he is most concerned to have tracing and information legislation out as soon as possible.