Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

These matters are already before the court. What generally happens, as the Deputies will be aware, is that the father will have to seek an order quashing an adoption order to enable him to be properly consulted if the adoption authority has dispensed with the right of the father to be consulted, which is a rare enough occurrence. If we leave matters as they are under the old system an applicant would have to go High Court and an applicant might decide to challenge a case, say, two or three years following a step-parent adoption. It will be a rare that this would happen, but is it not better to have these matters properly thrashed out at the earliest possible occasion? Is it not better to put the child at the centre of the issue?

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