Dáil debates

Thursday, 26 November 2009

Adoption Bill 2009 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed)

 

12:00 pm

Photo of Paul Connaughton  SnrPaul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on the Adoption Bill. I pay tribute to the Adoption Board, despite its shortcomings. The sensitivities involved in adoption make it a highly demanding area which requires great care. As a public representative and parent, one of my most pleasurable experiences has been to observe the great joy adoptive children bring to adopting parents. Not even the winning of the lottery could bring the same degree of joy and hope that an adoptive child brings to a family.

As Deputies are aware, adoption works in two ways. When a child, whether Irish or from any country in the world, becomes available for adoption, he or she may have the good fortune to become a member of a loving, caring home in which he or she is looked after in the same manner as biological children. Many couples who have adopted children on the basis that they could not have children have subsequently had their own children. I have never seen a rift of any description between adopted and biological children in the families I know. This demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that human nature is able to recreate the special bond between a parent and biological child with adopted children.

The work of the Adoption Board has changed dramatically over the years. I am informed that few children are available for adoption in Ireland. For obvious reasons, couples have, for many years, looked elsewhere for opportunities to adopt. Irrespective of the country from which children are adopted, the adoption process, from the first to the final day, is extremely difficult. I have been through the process with a number of families over the years.

While the Bill has some shortcomings on which I will not have time to speak in detail, I welcome most of its provisions. Shortcuts must not be introduced and the principles involved in adoption must be adhered to at all times. Adopting parents must always be suitable, an observation which some would argue is infant class stuff. It is vital, however, that this fundamental principle is applied irrespective of the pressures in society. We must ask whether a prospective adopted child will be cared for in a loving manner and provided with the best care possible given that his or her biological parents are unable to provide such care. It is the responsibility of the authorities, in this case the Adoption Board, to ascertain as best they can, under a variety of headings, whether the prospective adoptive parents will be able to raise the child with loving care and attention and do all the things all parents would like to do for their children. In my long career, I have not encountered any problems in this regard, although I am sure difficulties arise on occasion. I have not seen much trouble, so I have to take it that the selection process has been good but extraordinarily tortuous.

This is a technical matter. I am not sure whether those in charge at the HSE can make up their minds. If they can do it in 18 months in some parts of the country, but it takes five years in other parts, is it because the staff are not there? Is it because the rules are different? I know they are not. There must be some reason that it takes two or three years to get off the starting blocks in some parts of the country.

I hope this Bill will standardise the eligibility to become adoptive parents. I have never seen such anxiety caused by the wait for the letter to prospective adoptive parents informing them of the success or otherwise of their application. I have known couples who have tried every possible way of having a baby. They put thousands of euro that they did not have into this. I know of people who borrowed the cost of their own house to do it, because there was nothing as important on earth to them as having a baby in the house. It is very important that we should at least shorten the anxiety period for them when we know it can be done so quickly in some parts of the country. There is an effort in this Bill to do that, and I heard the Minister of State say this a few times outside the Dáil.

Naturally enough, there are certain medical criteria that the parents will have to meet. In one unusual case, the woman in question unfortunately contracted cancer halfway through the period prescribed for tests for suitability for adoption. She got the all clear from her doctor, but she was told a few days later that she would have to wait another three years, I assume because it was thought that the cancer might develop again. I find that hard to accept. Any parent could get cancer next week, and if such a parent decided to wait three years before having children, there is no law to say that the cancer might develop three years and two days later. Given that the medical advice was that the cancer had cleared up, and that the most eminent consultant in the world could not guarantee that it would not return, I still thought that the restriction was going a bit too far. The family involved would dearly love to adopt a child and I assume there are many more like it.

The whole adoption process is a tortuous journey when one considers the different legislative hurdles in the different countries. If they were all the same, we probably would not have this debate at all. One may have to spend two months in Vietnam or six weeks in Russia, so there is no end to the cost that this puts on families, and there is no doubt that their sincerity is beyond question. They are only too delighted to do this, but one would hope that there would be a standardisation of all the rules, and I think that is what is involved in this Bill.

It appears that some countries from which we adopt children will not be involved in the Hague Convention. I know many couples who have been waiting years for the go-ahead in Vietnam. If the Vietnamese do not sign up to the Hague Convention, then no matter how far the negotiations have gone, it is going to fall down. That is very hard to take. Cases always fall outside the law, but it is hard to take when everything is done by the book but adoption cannot take place because the child's country of origin will not sign up to the Hague Convention. The Minister of State is as genuine as they come on this issue, but if there is anything at all that can be done, the parents would be grateful. They know so much more about this than I do, because nobody knows more about it than those involved.

I consider the grandfather clause to be unusual term. I do not know how it managed to be called that, but I know what it is. I know some families that successfully adopted a child from Vietnam and from Russia, and they would love to have another child from the same country for a variety of reasons. As far as I can see, that is not contained in the Bill. I am surprised that it has been left out. It is a small enough matter on the outside, but it is a major issue for the parents who would like to have another child from the same country with the same culture, so that in years to come such a child will be able to go back to the country of his or her birth with a brother or sister.

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