Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I believe he somewhat misunderstood the point Senators Alex White and Healy Eames and I made in terms of race, ethnicity, nationality and so on. There is very advanced literature on, and practice in, Britain, in particular, about the criteria to be taken into account in the placement of children with appropriate adoptive parents and all the factors an adoptive agency must look at in terms of an appropriate placement. Those factors include the relevant ethnicity of the chid and the prospective adopters and the location in which the adoptive parents live, just as the nature of the home which the adoptive parents have to offer would be looked at, as indeed would their religion.

Senator Alex White put it correctly that this section privileges religion over all of those other considerations a reputable and good adoption authority must take into account in making a decision about the placement of a child with adoptive parents. All those factors must be looked at in the round, including the religion of the prospective adopters. Clearly, where the birth mother has a particular preference because perhaps she is of a particular religion or has an aversion to a particular religion, then the adoption authority if it is at all reputable, and ours are, must have regard to those wishes of the birth mother.

Our objection to this section is that it privileges religion over all the other considerations while at the same time, it does not refer in any way to the wishes of the birth mother in respect of where she might like the child to be brought up, whether in Dublin or Cork, for example, or whether she might like the child to be brought up by parents of a particular ethnicity or nationality. In privileging one consideration, it demotes all others or simply disregards them. That cannot be right when the authority must have regard to the best interests and welfare of the child.

This provision goes well beyond accommodating the entitlement of every one of us to have our own religious views or not to have religious views at all and it privileges religion. It also goes further by assuming that everyone has a religion. As an atheist, I take exception to that. Does it mean prospective adopters who are not religious may be disadvantaged in some way? There is a presumption that persons who are adopting are of a particular religion. That is problematic.

The Minister of State referred to 1974. He is quite right that in 1974 there would have been very different concerns about including a section such as this but it is 35 years later and things have moved on. Central Statistics Office figures on religious beliefs and affiliations clearly show us that times have changed in Ireland, that we are becoming more pluralist and more tolerant and that religion no longer has that privileged place in our society. That is quite right and proper.

There is a constructive way to move forward on this and I would like the Minister of State to intimate that he might consider it. I suggest an alternative provision which would address his concern about a birth mother's concerns about religion but which would take on board the suggestions we have made. The provision might state that "where possible, the authority shall seek to accommodate the wishes of the birth mother with respect to". One could include religion there as one of the factors to which the authority would have regard in making an adoption order. In that way, that is accommodating somebody who has a very strong view that she would like her child to be brought up in a particular religion while at the same time not creating this very problematic presumption that the child will be adopted by persons of the same religion as the mother.

Senator Healy Eames raised a relevant point. I read section 20 a number of times and it seems nonsensical if it also applies to inter-country adoptions. Perhaps the Minister of State will clarify that. If a child is from Vietnam, Russia or China, it will be very difficult to comply with this presumption because the religious affiliations would be very different. There may be no majority religion in some of the countries from which people are adopting. It is nonsensical in that case. It makes a farce of the provision in the first instance.

We are debating in a legal vacuum but we all know that the majority of people adopting in Ireland are doing so from abroad. The provision is nonsensical to that extent because I do not see how it can be implemented in inter-country adoptions in any real way and it does not take account of changes in Ireland 35 years on. It privileges religion and it assumes that all of us have a religion. It somehow implies that persons who wish to adopt may be disadvantaged in some way if they are not of a religion. For all those reasons, I urge the Minister of State to accept the constructive criticism of this section and perhaps look at some alternative which might accommodate birth mothers' wishes in respect of religion and other factors too.