Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I refer to amendments Nos. 3, 24 and 65, which have been discussed. This is about trying to create a system whereby another type of adoption would be permitted outside of the Hague Convention or a bilateral agreement. The Hague Convention is a minimum standard and as I noted previously, it is clear there never will be a situation in which one is 100% guaranteed that each adoption will be safe. Consequently, one must apply the standards contained in the Hague Convention or, if one cannot do so because the other country has not signed it, one must reach a bilateral agreement that is based on the Hague Convention's principles. Such principles guarantee automatic certification of such adoptions and specify that matters such as the consent of parents, the adoptability of a child, the eligibility of a child to be adopted and the principle that there be no improper financial gain, can be guaranteed in such an adoption. It is important to try to bring countries up to this level and it is an incentive to countries to declare that Ireland will have adoptions with countries that have signed the Hague Convention or with which we have bilateral agreements.

As for the so-called grandfather clause, this again suggests there should be a parallel process of adoption with countries that are unable to ratify the Hague Convention for some reason or with which Ireland does not have a bilateral agreement for some reason. Whatever that reason might be, it clearly is a matter of which one must take cognisance. If such states are unable to come up to the minimum standards, to which, incidentally, we signed up many years ago-----