Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am happy with quite a lot of what the Minister has stated in response to my amendment which I tabled to seek the clarification she has offered to me. My amendments, supported by Senator Feargal Quinn, seek to ensure all family types would be discussed and offered as part as the adoption assessment process. I wish to clarify that the birth mother's preference as to family type would be noted. I had presumed everything I was saying would be the case, but it was good to hear it from the Minister. The best interests of the child must be central. The birth mother is the natural mother and her voice has to be heard. When I was assessed to adopt, under the Hague Convention on both occasions, the birth mothers had the total say, which, being honest, I felt was right. We are talking about a life and the adoption assessment should be difficult because one is going to be honoured with a child. I spoke to the adoption authority about this issue and the principle of informed consent was sacrosanct. I accept that there are now only a number of adoptions here, but in the case of all referring countries the adoption assessment is made in Ireland. I have it on good authority that most referring countries, with the exception of South Africa, accede to the birth mother's wishes on family type which I think is interesting and important. It was one aspect that I checked. In the debate on the Adoption (Identity and Information) Bill 2014 Senators Jillian van Turnhout and Averil Power and I spoke about how wonderful it was when the birth mother met the child she had placed for adoption. It would be awful and unreasonable if on that day she were to find out that her child had been placed with a family of a type that was different from what she had indicated she would like for her child.

There have been a few red herrings in this debate. I have looked at research on this issue. While I am not in agreement with everything Senator Jim Walsh is saying, where he is accurate is that research in this area is insufficient. On studies of family type involving gay couples, the numbers are too small to draw conclusions from them. I completely agree that the quality of a relationship matters, but the environment in which a child is being raised also matters. If I was to be bold and quote some stuff I have read about anecdotal accounts of children being raised in same-sex couples and finding it difficult to be heterosexual as they grew up, that would be an example of insufficient research because the numbers are too small to generalise.Is there any possibility that a child might be placed with a heterosexual couple when the birth mother might have said she wanted to place the child with a gay couple or vice versa? The answer to these questions will decide whether I will press the amendment.