Seanad debates

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

4:00 pm

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Independent)

This matter on the Adjournment concerns the need for the Minister for Health and Children to hasten the process for Irish citizens to adopt children from overseas. The Minister of State will be familiar with this subject and I hope she will be familiar with the extreme pain, difficulties and sadness this problem causes a large number of families in Ireland. I am struck by the number of people who have approached me on this subject who were frustrated by a system that works badly and could be improved quickly.

It is a simple equation in some ways. There is a supply of children overseas who need happy homes badly and there are approximately 2,000 Irish people willing and anxious to take them on board and to provide them with happy homes. Some of the children live overseas in awful conditions of great poverty and in orphanages and should be provided with homes. The only element that is lacking is a speedy and fair system to hurry up the ultimate solution, namely, a happy upbringing.

What is the problem? Many were under the impression that it lay in the adoption systems abroad, but that is not the case. There is some slowness in many countries. Traditionally, the further east, the more bureaucratic. However, much of the blame for the delay experienced by Irish people who are anxious to adopt lies in Ireland. No one should take away the need for a rigorous and robust assessment of parents who seek to give homes to children and the State must ensure, as far as humanly possible, that the children are given happy, safe and secure homes and parents who will care for them and raise them well. Nobody who is frustrated by the system contests the need for rigorous assessment. What is at issue is the extraordinary slowness and the pain it causes parents who believe they are on the road to bringing up children, but find themselves frustrated.

I hope the Minister of State's speech will give some comfort to the parents because the progress made in recent years is deplorable. The situation is getting much worse, not better. I will provide the Minister of State with a few statistics to which a response would be interesting. In 2002, there were 41.1 full-time equivalent social workers dealing with inter-country adoptions. At the end of June 2007, the latest figures I have, there were 45.5 such workers, an increase of approximately 10%. In 2002, there were 1,057 applications waiting to be assessed. As of June last year, there were 1,928 applications waiting. What does this mean? Whereas demand has approximately doubled, the number of social workers has hardly increased. The result is a slowing down of the process. In 2002, 653 people were on the waiting list, but there are currently 1,525 people on the list, a multiple of 2.5.

Not only is the process slowing, but an independent report on the adoption process in 1999 suggested that 20 to 24 cases per annum should be cleared by a trained social worker. I do not know from where the figure came, but I presume it was produced by people with an expertise. The HSE accepted it, but preferred to go for the lowest possible figure, as it tends to do, of the 18-20 range. The actual figure being processed only occasionally reaches double digits. We have a crying need for more social workers if the applications are to be processed with the rigour the State requires.

Not only do we need more social workers, we need an end to the systemic delays in the adoption procedure. When I examined it, I knew of the regional differences. For example, it is easier in Donegal than in Dublin for various reasons. The procedures and the stages through which people must go are so demanding, long and many that there is almost automatically an extraordinary delay.

The Minister of State will be more familiar with the situation than I am, but I counted at least 12 principal types of procedure through which a person wishing to adopt abroad must go in Ireland. This is absurd and ridiculous. Some of the procedures are bureaucratic and I do not have time to list them all, but there is an initial approach to the HSE, followed by what is termed an "information meeting", usually three to four months later. The applicants makes a formal written submission but there appears to be a delay in the HSE — often between two and three years — before the application is activated.

I do not know what in the name of God happens in that time period but potential parents who would be happy to provide a home for a child must wait two or three years before their application is activated. Legitimate inquiries, such as Garda inquiries, medical tests and income assessments, are then made in respect of those involved, but why can these not be done beforehand? Why must it wait for activation by the HSE? I do not know why this process cannot be shortened.

After Garda, legal and medical inquiries it is necessary to meet the social worker. The social worker carries out home visits to assess the home, ensure the family is happy and see that things work out. It is right that he or she should do so, particularly if other children are present. However, these home visits could take place months or even years earlier, before an application is activated.

The problem is the blockage in the bureaucratic system evident in the HSE's three year delay in activating applications, the lack of social workers and the fact that social workers seem to be missing their targets. It is unfashionable to criticise social workers, and I am not doing so, but an independent inquiry said they should process a certain number of applications and they are not achieving this goal. There should be an inquiry as to why productivity targets are not being met; if a processing level of 20 to 24 applications is sought why are only 12 processed when there is a queue of 650 applications?

There are other procedures that must be gone through as part of the process, including visiting the Adoption Board, which takes another year or so because it also has a backlog. This probably means more people are needed on the Adoption Board.

This is a serious human problem that relates to the laws of supply and demand and it can easily be resolved through more staff, more resources and by firmly asking the HSE why there are such long delays between applicants writing in and the activation of their applications. I do not understand why it is not possible to activate applications immediately.

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