Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I address this issue in the context of many people who have approached me on it and which is obviously an increasingly difficult problem for a large number of people. It is the issue of stepfathers or stepmothers voluntarily adopting children but the real issue is where their partner, and in most cases it is the natural mother of the child, is forced to adopt the child also. I will give a simple example, with which the Minister of State will be familiar, of where a mother has a child, she parts with the natural father, she takes on another partner and the other partner volunteers to adopt that child. The child's natural father disappears off the scene but the mother, by law, also has to adopt the child.

The reason I believe that is wrong and should be remedied is because many mothers find this particularly offensive. It causes them an enormous amount of stress because they believe something has been taken away from them. It is difficult to explain often in strictly logical and legal terms and they have to come back and ask the State if they can now adopt their child when all that really is happening is that their new partner is volunteering and wanting to adopt the child. That is not just an emotional intrusion. The process whereby this is done is also an intrusion upon their lives.

Whereas it is both right and fair that the adoptive father - as is the position in the case to which I refer but it could also be an adoptive mother - should be subject to some form of observation, scrutiny and approval, it seems absurd that the birth mother should also be subject to the latter when she has kept the child all along. I am familiar with many cases where social workers came into the house in which all three parties - mother, prospective father and child - live and spent a great deal of time with them. He or she then proceeded to interview them and eventually granted approval to the adoptive father and the natural mother to adopt the child.

The Minister will understand that it is unfair to place people under pressure of this sort. It would not happen unless they were simply and solely deciding to do something which is in the interests of the child, namely, to give him or her another - and an official - parent. He or she would not otherwise have two parents as a result of the circumstances which obtain. I cannot see anything wrong with issuing birth certificates containing the names of all three parents, namely, the natural mother, the natural father and the adoptive father. This is a problem with gives rise to great emotion and which, due to changes in society, is increasing in frequency. It would be very easy to put matters right in respect of by introducing a small number of legal changes.

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