Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators and appreciate the amendment which concerns additional matters to some of the others outlined. Barnardos provides professional support for children adopted from abroad and their families living in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow on a range of post-adoption issues. In other areas, however, the Child and Family Agency adoption services provide information on the availability of local services, access to the social work duty system and facilitate peer support groups for the parents of adopted children. It should be noted, however, that under the Adoption Act 2010, once a child is adopted, parental duties are assigned to the adopted parent. Therefore, it is open to any adopted child to access the full range of services available to all Irish children. They include specialist psychiatric and psychological services, health services and speech and language services. While I appreciate that some children adopted from abroad may require specialised services to meet complex needs, such a need would be consistent for all children with complex needs, not just those who have been adopted. For these reasons, I do not propose to accept the amendment.