Phil Prendergast (Labour)

Having worked for many years as a midwife, I approach this issue from a slightly different angle because I have seen at first hand in my professional capacity incidences of people enduring long and tortuous attempts either to become pregnant or to go through all the investigations and the upset they felt in this regard or equally in cases where babies were lost. My concern was that Russia, Vietnam and Ethiopia could fall outside this requirement unless bilateral agreements were established with them. Vietnam has become the most popular country for Irish applicants and it follows the model practice that has been promoted by the Minister of State's Department, the Adoption Board and the Health Service Executive.

I tabled this amendment because of the nature of the contacts I have had with people in this regard. Moreover, I took no issue with any aspect of their e-mails because I discern the reason they would feel sufficiently strongly to do whatever they considered was necessary. I believe such actions were born out of frustration, as opposed to being deliberately provocative. It is simply that it causes great upset when people care deeply about something and believe it has been interfered with. Other countries have established bilateral arrangements with Russia and there is precedent and intent from the Russian side. There are hundreds of thousands of children in Russian orphanages and Ireland should not close its homes to such children either. As for Ethiopia, in recent analysis of adoption in Ethiopia, it has been deemed to be compatible with Irish law and consequently there should be no hold-up in establishing a bilateral agreement.