Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I regret the Minister of State's reply. He did not address the issues I raised. As the Minister of State with responsibility for children, he has given us a sort of mechanical reply that the Bill does not deal with guardianship, this is a matter for the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, ergo he will not deal with the matter. That is the explanation he gave.

The Bill does not deal with guardianship because it does not address this issue. It will deal with guardianship if this amendment and the other two amendments I proposed to the House are made. Here again, we have what I would describe as piecemeal thinking, that is, making a pretence at addressing issues from a child's perspective, but in fact offering the excuse that the Department does not deal with the issue. That is essentially what the Minister of State is saying. He is the Minister with responsibility for children across the Departments of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Health and Children and Education and Skills. I presume that if a guardianship Bill were introduced in the House, he would deal with it under the guise of Minister of State in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. I cannot take seriously his response.

The Minister of State also failed to state the reason successive reports of the Adoption Board are being ignored. I indicated already that I do not propose to read all the reports into the record of the House.

To return to the comments made by Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, apart from not confusing the child's background genealogy, giving rise to doubts about the position of the biological mother, there is another reason for providing the type of alternative structure I am proposing. Incidentally, there is no reason the adoption authority should not be given the entitlement to make such orders. A constitutional amendment we made to our legislation some years ago to protect the position of the Adoption Board will equally apply to the adoption authority and creates no difficulty in making this sort of order. The other reason for providing an alternative structure is to protect the role, in certain circumstances, of natural fathers. Natural fathers may not have difficulty with a husband of a biological mother acquiring rights to a child in circumstances in which the natural father has maintained contact with and has some access to the child, provided his identity as biological and legal father is not extinguished. By being able to make a guardianship order, one preserves the identity of the biological father as the father of the child while conferring rights on the husband that are to the benefit of the child in a parenting context. For this to happen, the same structure as applies with regard to seeking consents from the natural father would apply and if there was a dispute about this, ultimately it may well be that the District Court could otherwise have to deal with the matter.

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