Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Adoption Bill 2009. I have listened to the contributions made over the past few hours, some of which have been very emotional and all of which have been serious. One of the objects of the Bill is to ratify the Hague Convention and to statutorily provide for inter-country adoptions in accordance with the standards set out in the convention. It also proposes to repeal the Adoption Acts of 1952 to 1998 and restate and update the provisions of these Acts as appropriate. It will also reconstitute the Adoption Board as the Adoption Authority of Ireland, with additional functions and powers.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. While 42,000 adoption orders have been made in this country since 1952, there has been a dramatic change in the pattern of adoptions here. In the 1950s and 1960s, more than 2,000 Irish children were adopted in the United States. These children were mainly placed with families with Irish connections. However, in 1996 it emerged that more than 200 of those who were sent to the United States as young children found it very difficult to trace their origins because in many cases the parents' names on the birth certificates were false.

From 1990 onwards there has been significant change in the pattern of adoptions which is reflective of the change in this country. The election of Mary Robinson as President of Ireland in 1990 was a defining moment in Irish history. In her speech at her inauguration she spoke about the fifth province:

The Fifth Province is not anywhere here or there, north or south, east or west. It is a place within each of us – that place that is open to the other, that swinging door which allows us to venture out and others to venture in.

We have begun to show new confidence in ourselves. There is a changing attitude and acceptance which has made it easier for single mothers to keep their children whereas in the past they were forced to give them up. We all have cousins, brothers and sisters or uncles and aunts who have adopted children in the past but the situation is now very different for those hoping to become adoptive parents. Many couples are turning to other countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam and Romania to adopt a child. In the period between 1991 and 2007, more than 3,565 children were adopted into Ireland from abroad with 31% of that total coming from Russia and 22% from Romania. We all remember the television pictures showing the Romanian dictator being killed by the mob in Romania and the pictures of the orphanages and institutions where children were held in atrocious conditions. The conditions in which those children lived was a revelation to us.

The majority of children adopted from abroad were aged 17 months on average. Some were older and others had psychological problems. More than 80% of the children had spent time in institutional care. From 2007 onwards there has been a dramatic increase in the number of adoptions from Vietnam and most speakers have focused in their contributions on the current problems associated with the adoption of children from Vietnam.

Every public representative knows the pain and anguish suffered by couples in their bid to become adoptive parents. In 2007, 130 babies, mostly girls, were adopted, compared to 68 in the previous year. The number of children adopted from Russia also increased from 143 in 2006 to 160 in 2007. Various studies and reports show that it costs a minimum of $11,000 to arrange an adoption in Vietnam. Families who take this decision do not do so lightly and are distraught at the failure of this Government to agree a new bilateral agreement with Vietnam when the previous agreement ended in May. Several of those families have contacted most public representatives and they have contacted me through my constituency office in Ennis.

I wish to relate some of their stories to the Minister of State and the House:

The waiting is the worst. We are in limbo. The delay in agreeing a new bilateral probably means we will never have the chance now to have a child.

These are the words of one parent. Another couple first applied to adopt a child in 2003 and had been very close to concluding the adoption process. The mother's words are harrowing:

I have a room ready. I spent days deciding on the colour, the pictures. I wanted to make sure that everything was right. I was going to adopt a little girl. I bought her clothes, I had a little cot and now I am absolutely gutted.

Another said:

My husband and I had been in the adoption process for five years. We received our declaration of suitability last August and we have been registered to adopt from Vietnam since then. We would have expected to receive a referral for a child next month. I cannot describe to you what we and hundreds and people like us are going through right now. We are heartbroken by the way the Government is treating us. It is beyond cruel. We have travelled to Vietnam, we have learned some of the language and we cannot believe that while we have worked so hard this is slipping away from us now and we ask you for help.

These are some of the stories from some of the families who contacted me at my office in Ennis. I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Tony Killeen, has the same stories to report.

More than 240 families who have already registered with the Helping Hands agency are now left in limbo since the old agreement ran out in May. These families feel let down by the Government. The Minister of State needs to clarify the situation as to whether he intends to conclude a new agreement with Vietnam. It is also important that the Hague Convention be ratified. I remind the Minister of State that countries such as France and Italy have ratified the Hague Convention and have new bilateral agreements with Vietnam. I appeal to the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Haughey, who is deputising for Deputy Barry Andrews, to clarify the situation. The lack of a new agreement is very distressing and traumatic for most families involved.

As previous speakers have said, the lack of the grandfather clause is another issue and one which I wish to address. This clause would allow post-adoptive applicants to conduct a subsequent adoption from the country of birth of a first adopted child. I refer to a recent report on adoption from Vietnam commissioned by UNICEF Vietnam and the Vietnamese adoption department of the justice ministry. This is an important report of which every public representative, the Minister and the Minister of State with responsibility for children, should read and take note. It details the major inadequacies in the adoption process applied in Vietnam and proposes that Vietnam suspend inter-country adoptions for the necessary period during 2010, to implement the Hague Convention on inter-country adoptions and to prepare for entry into force of the new law on adoption in 2011. It could be a long time before Vietnam reaches an agreement on adoptions. Among the many recommendations contained in the report is that foreign authorities should examine how they might play a more active role in monitoring the actions of adoption agencies from their respective countries as well as the timely investigation of any alleged malpractice, possibly through joint initiatives.

I ask the Minister of State to clarify the situation. Under the expired bilateral agreement a review committee composed of officials from the Department of Health and Children and the Vietnamese authorities overseeing the work of the bilateral agreement during the past five years was in place but following parliamentary questions that committee refused to publish any documentary information about its meetings.

The previous Minister of State with responsibility for children, Deputy Brian Lenihan, promised a grandfather clause in the Adoption Bill. The Law Reform Commission also recommended a grandfather clause. I appeal to the Minister of State to include the clause by amending section 81 of the Bill. It is important in the first instance that children are protected and the ratification of the Hague Convention is a positive step. There is a lot more which could be included in the Bill. I hope the Minister will address these issues.

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