James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a very simple straightforward explanation. The additional funds are intended to support the authority in meeting its increasing legal costs, plain and simple. There is no increase in staffing levels or anything of that nature. Much good work has been done by the authority over the past year in terms of Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam with regard to foreign adoptions. I am sure everybody here wants to be assured that any adoptions we do become involved in through inter-country adoptions are done with the best interests of the child at heart, and that we do not find ourselves caught in a situation where people cannot trace their birth mother or find out who they are.

We are applying all of the new standards in that regard. I am informed by the authority that the agreement and protocol to which it signed up with the Philippines was adjudicated by UNICEF to be the standard to which others should look.