Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, lines 13 to 15, to delete all words from and including “(1) The” in line 13 down to and including line 15 and substitute the following:

“(1) Section 24 of the Principal Act is repealed.”.

I indicated on Committee Stage that I would bring forward an amendment to this section. Section 45 of the Adoption Act 2010 provides that where a child’s adopters have died a further adoption order may be made in respect of the child and, for the purposes of the order, the child shall be taken to be the lawful child of the deceased adopters.

The children referendum and the insertion of Article 42A in the Constitution states that provision shall be made by law for the adoption of any child and therefore extends to the further adoption of a child who was previously the subject of an adoption order. It was previously my intention to repeal section 45 of the Adoption Act 2010 to provide for this but I am now proposing instead to include an amendment in the Adoption (Amendment) Bill 2016 to provide that, where a child in respect of whom an adoption order is in force or an intercountry adoption effected outside the State that has been recognised, is further placed for adoption, a further adoption order may be made in respect of the child, and for the purposes of the order, the child concerned shall be taken to be the lawful child of the adopter or adopters in whose favour the first mentioned adoption order or intercountry adoption effected outside the State was made or recognised, as the case may be.

Amendment No. 1 removes the intended repeal of section 45 of the Adoption Act 2010 and amendment No. 15 substitutes a new section 45 in the 2010 Act to clarify that a further adoption order may be made or an intercountry adoption effected outside the State may be recognised in respect of an adopted child.

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