Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I am pleased there is support on both sides of the House for an urgent clarification by the Minister of State with responsibility for children, Deputy Barry Andrews, on the adoption crisis currently being experienced by families in this State. As an adoptive parent, I know what it is like to go through the process of adopting a child. As we speak, the applications of 24 Irish couples are delayed in Hanoi because the Minister of State has dropped the ball.

In the first week of March, we debated the provisions of the Adoption Bill 2009 in this House. Senator Fitzgerald and I told the Minister of State it was critical that the bilateral agreement should be in place by 1 May. His failure to act is hurting families, including the 250 couples who are ready to submit their applications to the Vietnamese authorities. The Minister of State has also dropped the ball in regard to Russia. Irish couples successfully adopted 484 babies from Vietnam and Russia last year, accounting for 84% of inter-country adoptions. I implore Members on the other side of the House to come together us on this issue. I ask that the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, be invited to the Chamber this afternoon to update us on the situation. I cannot answer all the e-mails I am receiving from people asking questions about it.

I raise the next issue only after careful consideration. As I participate in the canvass for the forthcoming elections, I am encountering great hatred and anger at foreign nationals, which seems to have become far more acute as the downturn deepens. This hostility is emerging in the context of two issues in particular, namely, social welfare and its cost to the State and, above all, education and the effect of the withdrawal of teachers providing English language support. In one school in Oranmore, for example, two teachers will have to provide English language support to 154 foreign national children. That is an impossible task.