Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Amendment No. 40 suggests waiving provisions that are unnecessary for the protection of the child's welfare. It is important to recognise that adoption is a service for children. Where the State presumes to provide the place of parents or endorse the role of parents, it must be satisfied about the best interests of any child being placed in the care of persons not the child's parents. Section 37 gives us the opportunity for an accredited body to carry out these assessments. I have had discussions with the representative associations and my staff about what we can do. We have other priorities at the moment, such as bilateral agreements and post placement reports, but I have undertaken to meet with the associations over the summer to find a solution to this. It is too early to say where we will go and how we will provide for such a service but we do not want to create a fast-track assessment where those with lots of money can afford to pay for an assessment. This must be not for profit and the service must be provided equally to all applicants. How that is funded will be discussed with stakeholders. I am ambitious to shorten the time, which is onerous, as pointed out by Senator Prendergast. It is properly onerous in most of the requirements in the criteria. The length of time is unfortunate. We are dealing with a limited number of social workers, as has been identified earlier. These are the same social workers who deal with child protection and post placement reports, which are increasing at a fast rate. While we have no embargo on the recruitment of social workers, we have a finite budget in the normal way. While other categories of employment are embargoed, social workers are not. With a combination of these measures we should be able to tackle the issue.