Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The requirement to assess prospective adoptive parents is set out in the Hague Convention. The convention refers to "parents" rather than to one or other parent. We have to ensure the best interests of the child are placed at the centre of this assessment. That requires that both prospective adoptive parents are assessed. Deputy Jan O'Sullivan quite fairly raised the question of a natural parent who may be seeking to adopt. It has to be acknowledged that there is a requirement for an applying adoptive parent to have "adequate financial means". A natural parent who has raised a child perfectly well up to the point of the application might be found not to have "adequate financial means". No specific sum is provided for - one's means simply need to be adequate to one's purpose. The health and presentation of the child would serve as proof that one's financial means are adequate, regardless of what they might be. There is a requirement that both prospective adoptive parents be assessed.

I acknowledged earlier that it is not ideal for a natural mother to have to adopt her own child. It can give rise to the kind of oddities mentioned by Deputy Ó Caoláin. It is odd for one to have to prove one is in good health before one can adopt one's own child. I suggest that the requirements are suitably onerous. One has to put the best interests of the child first, particularly in the context of international adoption. When one is assessing whether a child who has come through some trauma in his or her life should be placed with a prospective adoptive parent, one has to consider whether that person is capable of bringing the child up in the child's best interests. For that reason, I do not propose to accept these amendments.

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