Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

I thank the Minister for her reply. Originally, the delegation was supposed to go in April, but the Minister is now saying it is likely to be late June. A few of the families involved have been in contact with me. I realise there are problems on all sides and that many aspects on the other end leave a lot to be desired, but from the point of view of the rights of the families, it does appear things could have been handled a bit better. One parent in particular pointed out some areas in which he thought things could be done better by the AAI. For example, the AAI needs to understand there are young children at the centre of this process, as sometimes it seems to lose sight of this. He also said its communications with prospective adoptive parents could probably improve, that it needs to respect the processes established with Hague-compliant countries, that it should start working with more Hague-compliant countries rather than concentrating all its efforts on setting up bilateral arrangements with countries that will never be Hague-compliant and have no interest in becoming so, such as Russia, Vietnam and Ethiopia, that it should tap into the wealth of knowledge gathered by prospective adoptive parents, and most importantly, that the delegation to India should seek to repair the damage it has done in some areas. There are some people who have been waiting to adopt from India but are at the mercy of the authority because of red tape. Without understanding it all myself, I get the impression, while admitting these things are complicated and multifaceted, that there seems to be a certain amount of inefficiency. In some ways the authority could be described as dysfunctional. Would the Minister agree?

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