Mary O'Rourke (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on this legislation, which I welcome. I noted as I entered the Chamber that there are present three female Members one or other of whom have either contributed to the debate or are awaiting an opportunity to do so. I note the officials accompanying the Minister of State are also female. The reason for this is, I suppose, that this is an issue which strikes women deeply.

Like Deputy O'Sullivan I, too, have a file full of e-mails and letters on this issue sent during recent months. The Minister of State and his officials have been straightforward in their dealings with me in terms of giving me the up to date position and setting out what they hope to do. This Bill fulfils many functions as do most Bills because legislators seek to introduce worthy legislation. The Bill seeks to incorporate the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption into Irish statute law, which is good. It also provides for making and recognising intercountry adoptions in accordance with bilateral agreements, establishes the adoption authority of Ireland and provides for the repeal of various Adoption Acts.

I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the original Adoption Board established in 1952 and to all chairpersons and members of that board who undertook Trojan work at a time when the issue of adoption was alien to people and fraught with difficulty. As an adoptive parent I was treated with great kindness by the board when I first went to meet with it and in terms of the after care I received following the adoption. Often when a new agency or body is established - I am sure the Minister of State is not guilty of this - one tends to forget that which went before and the great work done at that time. I recall the trepidation which my husband and I felt when going to meet the board. We worried about what questions we would be asked and whether we would measure up. They are the types of thoughts that come to one's mind. It should not be forgotten that adoption is an awesome task whether one is adopting a child at home or abroad. It awakens in people primitive feelings, including in the woman who gives up the child regardless of in what country she lives. The date of 4 September never passes without my recalling the woman who gave birth to our son. The process deeply affects everyone. The woman involved in our case endured the trauma of giving birth to her child and we endured the trauma - trauma it is - of adopting the child, although the end story was happy all round. Adoption is a life changing experience. If it can be a life changing experience in an Irish context, in terms of our all looking vaguely similar and speaking the same language, one can only imagine what must be the experience in respect of an intercountry adoption. There are huge difficulties involved.

I opened a file on this issue at an early stage because I knew it would be a big issue not alone for my constituents but for people all over Ireland, which became evident as my file got bigger. All of the correspondence I received was infused with desperation as the people involved were caught in a situation not of their making. I will come soon to speaking about the Bill before us. I wanted first to speak about the hopes and fears experienced by people and their concern that they will not in the end see their dreams realised. Often these letters and e-mails include statements - this may seem simplistic as I say it - such as "There is a child waiting for us in Russia; I know there is" "There is a child waiting for us in Ethiopia, I know there is", "There is a child waiting for us in Vietnam; I know there is", which brings to mind the difficulties being experienced by the men and women involved.

Only this morning, having assumed I had received all correspondence on this issue, I received an interesting letter from a woman and her partner in regard to what they believe would be a sufficient transitional arrangement. Deputy O'Sullivan spoke earlier about transitional arrangements. This couple ask should it not be when a declaration is issued to them that they are deemed eligible and suitable to be adoptive parents. I will forward the submission, which is well put together, to the Minister of State. It deals with issues such as the difference in length of time for issuing declarations in various countries, which can take months in some countries and years in others. They suggest that a person issued with a declaration should be allowed to move to transitional arrangements, which appears to me to be a good case in point.

I recognise and admire the care taken by the Minister of State in this area, in particular given the would-be adoptions in Vietnam, which was an emotional and difficult issue to cope with on a daily basis. I am aware of the difficult situation faced by the Minister of State at a particular conference he attended. Fundamental to this Bill is that the child's interests must be paramount. This should, and is, the bases of all child care legislation. I speak as a Member of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children which is in the closing stages of its work. It is important that the child is central to this process whether domestic - there are fewer numbers of such adoptions nowadays - or intercountry. While the primitive longing experienced by people is almost over-powering this should not and does not take from what is in the best interests of the child, as provided for in this legislation and in terms of future work in this area.

We signed the Hague Adoption Convention in 1996. A fundamental principle of that convention is that intercountry adoptions should be child-centred. This should be the case in respect of all adoptions. The Minister of State outlined the functions of the various sections. Part 12 provides for the establishment of the adoption authority and its proposed functions. This brought to mind the role of the various Adoption Boards and the fine and sterling work they did in what was then, but not now, thankfully, an alien environment in terms of adoption. There are, as far as I can ascertain from the e-mails and letters I have received, three countries on which prospective adoptive parents are now focusing, Ethiopia, Russia and Vietnam. I am glad to note from the Minister of State's contribution that matters with regard to Vietnam have advanced. I am sure the Minister of State in his reply will tell us what advancement has been made in this regard. They have come a long way from where they were when talk of an Adoption Bill started to surface, gaining the interest of people who had gone through considerable reflection before deciding to adopt. They did not just jump out of bed one morning and say "Yes, we will adopt". That is not how it happens. Even before they applied to the HSE and so on, they gave it keen thought and reflection.

I do not know what is the cause of the delay but it appears from the letters and e-mails I receive that there is a very long delay in some cases for approval - the stringent test under which one is accepted as a suitable adoptive parent, which is the beginning of the whole process. I have heard stories indicating that the time taken is excessive and others indicating that is not so, but it does appear to take a long time. In addition, the period involved appears to vary. One person will tell one that her caseworker went on maternity leave, as she is fully entitled to, which meant she was unavailable for nine months. Such cases often lapse as they are not picked up by other caseworkers in the system. There are also many heart-warming cases of good relationships being founded on the interaction between the would-be parent and the caseworker. However, I hope there will be standardisation of the time required for approval of would-be parents.

Deputy O'Sullivan mentioned the matter of a grandfather clause. I do not know about that. I spoke informally about it to the Minister of State one day after a committee meeting. The idea sounds good in theory but I do not know what is the impetus behind it. Let us say one adopts a child from the Russian Federation; one would then have the right to adopt another child from the same geographical location. This is what the term "grandfather clause" means in this case, although it appears in all sorts of things such as land dealings. However, I never finished the conversation with the Minister about this and I do not know how he feels about the issue. I do not know whether he intends to introduce an amendment in this regard, but he does intend to introduce amendments dealing with transitional arrangements.

This afternoon I read through the 22 letters and e-mails I received on this subject to get a feeling for the whole matter, and it struck me that the biggest issue was that of transitional arrangements. I hope we can in some way master the issue through amendments - I am sure they will be many - while encompassing the things I mentioned, taking into account the length of time, strength of emotion and cost involved. The cost, in particular, has sapped people as they went through all these steps and wished to see their babies materialise. It does not always happen like that, as I know so well. If decent transitional arrangements can be established, it would allow those putative parents, some of whom already have one or two adopted children and others who are just embarking on the journey, to hold onto their dreams of receiving their children. There was a fear in the beginning that when this adoption Bill was signed by the President a lock would suddenly come down: many countries that were open to the possibility of adoption would no longer be, and that would be the end of the dream.

When the Minister of State is introducing amendments to this legislation they will need to be comprehensive. They should be fully rounded and take into account the various stages people have gone through, often with heartbreaking results. I received an e-mail about the declaration, which I will forward to the Minister when I return to the office as it will strike a chord with him and his officials.

Adoption in general is a fraught and emotional process and requires great strength of character as it draws strongly on a person. No matter whether one is adopting from Ethiopia, Vietnam or the Russian Federation - or, in different times, from one's home country - one still thinks of the woman who bore the child. I always remember that woman when a particular date in September comes around. I remember her with happiness and I hope her life turned out to be happy and fulfilled. I welcome the fact that many people can obtain information about their birth parents through birth registers, while birth parents can access that information and, it is to be hoped, live happily with the consequences of what they find.

I wish the Minister good luck with the Bill, which is a fine one. I hope he will pass to the old Adoption Board, or certainly its chairpersons who are still around, my thanks to them for their painstaking work over the years and the way they gave of their intelligence, time and commitment to what was not, then, a very acceptable cause but is now and will remain so. I wish the Bill a speedy passage and look forward to dealing with the amendments.

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