Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I do not believe the amendment does state the law at present. The law at present, as the Minister of State and I said, is that there is a constitutional presumption that the interests of the child are within the marital family but, in all other matters, while the constitutional preference for the family is there in Article 41, it is not necessarily with the natural parents. We must be mindful of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and our obligations thereunder to ensure the best interests of the child must take precedence in all matters concerning the child's welfare. Of course, that is in keeping with other legislation in terms of the Guardianship of Infants Act, which defines "welfare" very broadly in section 2, and while we do not have a definition here, we can take it "welfare" has a similar broad meaning in this Bill. It would be important not to qualify the consideration contained in section 19 that the welfare of the child should always be first and paramount in considering the making of an adoption order.