Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 134: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her views on the establishment of arrangements to encourage inter-country adoptions; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45401/08]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Office is continuing to work to create the appropriate legislative, policy and administrative frameworks which will ensure a well regulated regime of adoption which reflects both the changing nature of adoption and the growth in intercountry adoption. The Government's aim is to support and protect prospective parents, and even more importantly, the children for whom adoption services are devised and provided.

The first priority is the ratification of the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Intercountry Adoption, 1993. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the Adoption Bill, 2008, which will ratify the Convention, will be published at the earliest opportunity.

A core principle of the Hague Convention is that intercountry adoption should be child centred, that is, in all stages of the process the child's interests must be paramount. The Hague Convention has put in place the equivalent of a contract between states to regulate the standards that will apply in each jurisdiction. It is an additional safeguard for a receiving country like Ireland regarding the standards that are being applied in the sending country, over which we have no jurisdiction. As a receiving country it is especially important to have some confidence in the process of consent to the adoption, the status of the child as adoptable and a guarantee of no improper financial gain from the process. Legislation and specifically the regime of the Hague Convention is at least some assurance for individual children, their families, and the State, that appropriate procedures have been followed and that the adoption was affected in the best interests of the child.