Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy is right that we are dealing with a blockage in regard to children who would be otherwise adoptable but are in long-term foster care. The categories for which the Deputy is seeking to provide additional rights would normally be adoptable but for the 1988 interpretation. I remember the Deputy raising this issue at the all-party meetings of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children where his view was that there was a very narrow interpretation abroad about how that could be relied on by people in long-term foster care. I am absolutely sympathetic to what the Deputy is trying to do but the relaxation of the point will bring the issue more into the categories of long-term foster care children under 18 years of age. That issue would be more appropriately dealt with for children rather than for adults. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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