Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 48:

In page 29, to delete lines 37 to 43 and in page 30, to delete lines 1 to 4 and substitute the following:

33.—(1) (a) The Authority shall not make an adoption order, or recognise an intercountry adoption effected outside the State, unless—

(i) the applicants are a married couple who are living together,

(ii) the applicant is the mother or father or a relative of the child, or

(iii) the applicant, notwithstanding that he or she does not fall within subparagraph (ii), satisfies the Authority that, in the particular circumstances, the adoption is desirable and in the best interests of the child.

(b) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the Authority may recognise an intercountry adoption effected outside the State on the application of a person referred to in paragraph (a) or (c) of section 90(3).".

The purpose of amendments Nos. 48, 50 and 51 is to reformat section 33 and to ensure that an adopted person or a person with an interest in the matter who wises to have particulars of an adoption entered into the register of inter-country adoption as provided for under section 90 and who is married does not need the consent of a spouse in order to have the adoption recognised. In other words, only adoptive parents require each other's consent to the adoption.

The amendment to section 33 provides that if the person applying for recognition of an inter-country adoption effected outside the State is the adopted person or a person with interest in the matter as referred to, the person does not have to meet the minimum age requirement of 21 years. The age limit of 21 in this subsection is only relevant in the context of the adoptive parents at the time of the making of the adoption order or the recognition of the inter-country adoption order.

I will speak to amendment No. 49 proposed by Deputy Shatter. If the applicant is a spouse of the child's parent, the married couple may apply to adopt the child under section 33(1) but not if the child is a child of marriage. Under existing legislation children of widows or widowers who remarry cannot be adopted by their surviving parent's new spouse. Children of a marriage can only be adopted in exceptional and very limited circumstances, which provision is not altered in this scenario. The Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution will have a significant bearing in this area.

See this speech in context