Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

Amendments Nos. 22, 23 and 24 which are being taken in conjunction with amendment No. 16 relate to a different issue in terms of the definition of father. The Minister appears to believe that in interposing the High Court into all of this he is giving additional protection to fathers. This legislation seeks to ensure, in compliance with our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and basic human values, that where fathers are involved with their children, they should be notified. Even where they are not involved with their children they should be notified and should be given an opportunity to be heard.

There are certain special circumstances - the Bill uses the words "exceptional circumstances" - where fathers may not be notified, for example, a biological father may not be notified where a child has been conceived as a consequence of rape. There may be other circumstances such as the whereabouts of the father not being known and as such he cannot be notified. I do not understand, in circumstances where we have had an adoption board for many years, a system that is entirely different from the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland systems, why, when we are to have an adoption authority dealing uniquely with adoption, we are superimposing the High Court into all of this in the manner the Minister now proposes through this legislation. I do not see this as providing additional protection for fathers' rights. I believe it will prolong unnecessarily the process because the adoption authority, as a body with limited judicial functions, can address that issue quite properly. It appears to me that it will now have to deal with the issue on a preliminary basis following which the High Court will be asked to deal with it. I do not see the purpose in this duplication. At a time when we are trying to focus resources to the benefit of children in terms of protection and when the HSE is in large parts of the country incapable of processing adoption assessments within a reasonable period, we are going to divert public expenditure to create problems in a large number of cases in respect of which currently no High Court applications are required. Essentially, these will be family adoptions. In the majority of domestic adoptions, to which I made reference previously, we are not alone going to superimpose the High Court but the Chief State Solicitor's Office, junior counsel and, possibly, senior counsel will be involved. This will create a money trail all the way to the Bar, the Law Library, for no reason. I do not say this to be in any way critical of anybody in the Bar. There are occasions when adoption matters do come before the courts. It is often necessary for them to come before the courts and they can be difficult, contentious and distressing.

This provision is bringing into the courts an area of adoption that has not up to now required the involvement of the court system. As I pointed out, 64% of adoptions that took place in 2008 were family adoptions and 79% of applications received in 2008 were in respect of family applicants. Those statistics involved families where, in all but three instances, it was the biological mother adopting with a husband. In the other three instances, it was the biological father adopting with a wife, the husband and wife in each example not being the biological parent.

In the context of many family adoptions, this provision will automatically create a trail of 50 or 100 cases being brought to the High Court. Based on the information available to him in the Adoption Board, has the Minister of State assessed, for example, that if this provision was in place in 2008, how many of the adoptions of this nature effected in 2008 would have first required an application to the High Court?

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