Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Some of my questions have been answered already, so I am reformulating some of my thoughts here. The criteria that was mentioned by Senator Seery Kearney and the checklist that was spoken about, is an interesting aspect. One of the things that comes to mind, certainly, from our own experience in this country, is intercountry adoption, where countries have been approved for intercountry adoption, have lost that approval and have managed to regain it. I do not know if we are engaging with the Adoption Authority of Ireland. Perhaps a comparative paper about its experience of regulating intercountry adoption, or even an issues paper around it, could be very useful - if we have time, admittedly. There was mention of the checklist that the judges are using in relation to parental orders. I was very curious about parental orders and whether any were denied. I am hearing that none were denied, which is interesting. Is the checklist that judges are using informal and coming from these NGOs or Government agencies, or is it grounded in any sort of legislation, statutory instruments or regulations? Where does that checklist come from? What does it look like? I think that would be a very useful thing to know in terms of those criteria. I have a few other questions after that.