Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

My amendment encapsulates all that I said on Second and Committee Stages. If we are dealing with equality, to which this amendment refers, we should offer and provide full equality to adoptive and natural parents. I requested that we provide leave for adoptive parents, or potential adoptive parents, prior to the placement of the baby. I tabled amendments which the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Michael McDowell, did not accept. I concede that probably they were too wide. I will submit more amendments on Report Stage, which I hope will be acceptable, to the effect that we grant equality and recognise that many adoptive parents must travel abroad to visit the place where the child is staying or the people who deal with the adoptions in those countries. Their trips should be recognised in some way.

Babies are born to families in different ways. The easy route is when someone expects and then delivers a baby, and there has been an expectation of and preparation for that event. It is probably much more difficult for adoptive parents to go through that process because their hopes are built up but often dashed too. We should recognise that they must go through a very long process prior to placement of the baby which should be recognised. That must be addressed in the context of equality.

I asked the Minister if he could provide us with the figures for the number of foreign adoptions. While his officials gave us the annual number of adoptions in recent years, they could not provide figures for the number of foreign adoptions. I expect that number to show that many adoptions are dealt with abroad, which will highlight the need to provide time off for parents who must travel to initiate and complete the adoption process.