Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this important legislation, the Adoption Bill 2009. I welcome the Bill as it is long overdue. It is well over half a century since we got around to updating legislation that should have been modernised long before that. The Hague Convention was signed in 1996 but it was approved in 1993. It has taken us 16 years to get to this stage and it is a scandal that it has not been progressed before now. The convention was signed in 1996, when my party was last in Government, and no progress has taken place since.

Successive Fianna Fáil-led Governments have been in office and have done nothing to ensure that the benefits of the Hague Convention, along with its protection and safeguards, are put in place. It is welcome to at least see us passing this legislation to finally ratify the convention next year, as the Minister of State has indicated. Some 16 or 17 years will have passed in which we will not have put children first in this country.

Adoption is a very important and emotional issue. It is the centre of existence for so many loving couples and individuals who are going through the process of having a child adopted and seeking to bring an unwanted or abandoned child into a loving home. They seek to give such a child care and support and rear him or her as every child should be reared. Every adopting couple has the best interest of the child at heart. It is imperative that we, as legislators, ensure the best interest of the child is dealt with by providing a framework through which the adoption process can take place.

We understand from international social services dealing with adoption that from 30,000 to 40,000 adoptions take place around the world every year. The number is substantial. Ireland is one of the countries with the highest number of adoptions in the European Union and significant numbers of Irish people are anxious to adopt children and are willing to go through the arduous process involved in adopting a child. The process has been extended and made more difficult over the years and all of us have received e-mails and letters telling us the harrowing stories of prospective couples and individuals who have faced problems and disruptions in the process. The most recent problem for adoptive parents has been the problem caused as a result of the expiration of the Vietnamese bilateral agreement last summer. The agreement has not been renewed and major issues have arisen with regard to its future renewal.

Adoption is an exceedingly important issue and we must deal with it with great consideration and sensitivity. We must show sensitivity to the children in question, their biological parents and the prospective parents. Often, adoptive parents believe the biological parents are dead or have abandoned the child, which is why the Hague convention is so important. It can ensure the situation is valid and that standards and mechanisms are in place in the sending country so that no questions arise in terms of the validity and mechanism of the adoption process.

It has taken us a long time to put children's rights first. We still do not have a child-centred Constitution, although we have been talking about this for years and talks are ongoing on the introduction of an amendment to the Constitution in the coming year. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle is central to those discussions, but despite the number of years that have passed since the foundation of the State, we do not have clearly delineated protections for children in the Constitution. The Hague convention does this and includes the adoption and the inter-country adoption processes in a child-centred fashion.

The bilateral agreements that have been established have been an Irish solution to an Irish problem and were established on something of an ad hoc basis. They operate with some countries, but not with others. Adoptions from Cambodia, for example, operate under the Hague convention, but there seems to be a reluctance here to encourage Irish people to adopt children from there. The convention is not operational in Vietnam, yet a large number of children have been adopted from there. We have no bilateral agreement with the Russian Federation, but we have an adoption procedure that operates there. We have a hotchpotch of relationships with other countries from which children are adopted. It is beyond belief to think this has continued throughout the 20th century and into this first decade of the 21st century without being regularised and standardised and best practice being put in place, particularly in view of the fact we are in breach of our international covenants in the matter.

The principle behind adoption is that an unwanted or abandoned child living in poverty with little hope for the future is given a loving home with the prospect of a new life. This is admirable and clearly all prospective adoptive parents adhere to this principle. We are now in the process of regularising the situation by providing in legislation for the implementation of the Hague convention, but at the same time questions have arisen with regard to the validity and propriety of the existing process with Vietnam. It is sad that just as we are about to adopt best practice, we have found we have been operating a process that has been criticised as being less than best practice and in many cases bad practice.

We must ask ourselves questions about our expectations with regard to adoptions from developing countries into industrialised and wealthy countries. How can such countries interface without having a watertight framework and mechanism in place to ensure proper procedures are followed at all times? This is difficult, because we are not comparing like with like. On one side we have a wealthy country and on the other one with great needs as a result of poverty and its inability to rear and nurture its children. These issues pose a danger. When there is such discrepancy between the status of both countries, it is inevitable there will be breaches of best practice. However, if no best practice agreement is in place - just a bilateral or no agreement - it is inevitable problems will arise. Unfortunately, we have seen this in recent days in the case of UNICEF's report on the Irish adoption process in Vietnam. The Minister has taken these findings on board and has indicated that the Adoption Board is conducting an investigation into Helping Hands, the mediation agency involved in the adoption process in Vietnam.

The allegations and findings are substantial. It has been found that moneys have changed hands improperly. That cannot be taken lightly. It is fraud and the findings are disturbing and alarming. It has been found that one wealthy country has been improperly involved with a poor country in receiving children for adoption.

If the UNICEF findings are proved to be true, there could be serious repercussions for Ireland. I do not know if it is proper for the Minister of State to ask the Adoption Board to investigate the UNICEF allegations; it may be necessary to look further and wider. I presume the Adoption Board is responsible in the first instance for supervision of the mediation agency. It is similar to the case of the banks where the regulatory authority was not regulating them. Was the Adoption Board keeping an eye on whether procedures and best practice were in place? The board should not be responsible for conducting an investigation when it may well be negligent itself in terms of monitoring and supervision.

I am loath to say it but perhaps the fraud squad should be involved. This is not a route preferred by anyone but I refer to the nature of the UNICEF findings, which refer to very serious, systemic shortcomings in the manner in which Ireland conducted its business with Vietnam. These were substantial rather than minor matters. It is a very serious matter if the entire process of adoption from Vietnam is tainted. We need to deal with the situation in a comprehensive fashion because this involves the welfare of children. Last week the House passed legislation to prevent the trafficking and exploitation of women and children, which is a problem throughout the world. Such trafficking for the sex trade or the labour market is regarded as the third largest global industry. It is an underground business controlled by gangs.

The Hague Convention foresaw the need to deal with the trafficking of children and the issue of child laundering, that children could be used rather than simply being abandoned. It is still the case that children are abandoned, discarded and institutionalised. The best option for these children is for them to be brought into a loving environment by means of adoption.

However, if the country sending the children for adoption is using the opportunity to trade children for money this is completely unacceptable. This is the practice alleged and we must ensure it never taints the Irish adoption process. It is scandalous that over the past 16 or 17 years, Ireland has not put in place the standards set out in the Hague Convention which are only minimum standards. These standards are not absolute best practice but rather international minimum standards which every country is expected to maintain and I am pleased that Ireland has done so now. However, I hope that irreparable damage has not been done to the process of inter-country adoption in which Ireland has engaged during the twilight zone, which was almost an Irish way of going about things rather than adopting best practice and international standards.

I refer to a recent report from Save the Children which I regard as alarming. It states that approximately 80% of children living in orphanages in Third World countries have a surviving parent. If those children are adopted they are being taken away from a surviving parent. In such circumstances support is required for the parent to ensure the child is not put into an institution or an orphanage purely as a result of poverty or some other reason. These matters need to be carefully examined, something which has not happened in the present process.

I hope the situation as outlined by UNICEF is neither endemic nor in operation in other countries from which children are adopted into Ireland. We must ensure there is an investigative process with regard to all countries involved in the Irish inter-country adoption process. The sooner this is undertaken by the Minister of State, the better. This would be preferable to his rather questionable proposal to establish an investigation by the Adoption Board into the mediation agency.

It is important to remember that loving couples and individuals are available who would provide a fantastic home for unwanted children or for children abandoned in homes and orphanages. We must not allow that system to fail because there is a current disruption in the process. Many countries have not signed up to the Hague Convention and Vietnam is one of those countries. We have been asking for transitional arrangements to be made. The Minister of State has indicated that where standards similar to the Hague Convention standards are in place, arrangements can be made in that respect.

I hope transitional arrangements can be put in place with the safeguards incorporated in this Bill. I hope people who have been waiting for years to become adoptive parents will not have to begin the process all over again and that the arrangements can be concluded under the transitional arrangements. If the Minister of State decides Ireland will not deal with any country that has not put the Hague Convention arrangements in place, this will be a body blow to many prospective adoptive parents who are currently in the adoption process. Having learned the lessons of what has happened, it is time to put those procedures in place. I urge the Minister of State to give the House some indication of how he intends to proceed with regard to ratification of the Hague Convention and how he intends to deal with this very complex, cumbersome interim stage of transitional arrangements.

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