Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I am grateful to the Minister of State for giving a considered response. Clearly, there are still issues the details of which we are not fully aware. As I mentioned, we appreciate the sensitivities in this case and that the Minister cannot provide the full picture of what is taking place. As the Minister remarked, we are all concerned about the welfare of the child, whether in Vietnam or here. The welfare of the child is the paramount consideration. We are also conscious of our history in Ireland and the problems in the past with adoption procedures not being robust and not having sufficient safeguards for the birth parents. We are all very concerned to ensure no birth parents should give up a child for adoption under duress of any form. This must be foremost in our minds. We all very much support the principle behind the Bill and the principle enshrined in the Hague conference. These points are all important.

I accept the Minister of State's point that the provision to the effect that the welfare of the child is the first and paramount consideration is contained elsewhere, but it is still important that it is contained here. Neither Senator Norris nor I propose to push the amendment, but we ask the Minister of State to consider whether it could be inserted in a more general provision elsewhere, perhaps in section 92.

Some of the later amendments relate to the importance of tracing. We are conscious of that need when talking about ensuring watertight adoption agreements are made with specific countries, that there is no duress and people give consent freely to relinquishing children. The other side of this is we need to ensure tracing services are in place for children who have been adopted. Later on they are often caused great distress because they cannot trace their birth parents. This is one of the reasons we must ensure any agreements we make with other countries are robust and the systems in place in those countries have sufficient safeguards for the birth parents to ensure there is no duress, coercion or undue influence brought to bear on parents placing children for adoption. We must bear all this in mind while at the same time recognising the distress of the prospective adopters here who are being left in an uncertain position. However, I do not propose to push the amendment.