Written answers

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

Department of Health and Children

Adoption Services

8:00 pm

Photo of Andrew DoyleAndrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 551: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the reason Ireland is one of the last receiving countries to ratify the Hague Convention. [38801/09]

Photo of Barry AndrewsBarry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Government's objective in regard to adoption is to provide a regime in which the child is at the centre of the adoption process, whether it is an inter-country adoption or a domestic adoption, and that adoptions are effected in manner that is legal, safe and secure. The most important development in achieving that objective is the development of an appropriate legislative regime that recognises the changed and changing global situation vis-À-vis adoption over the last 20 years. The Adoption Bill that was published on 23 January 2009 and which includes the regime of the Hague Convention, provides an 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. The Hague Convention, which is given the force of law in the Adoption Bill, effectively puts in place an agreement between states to regulate the standards that will apply in each jurisdiction. It will put in place safeguards that acceptable standards are applied in other countries over which we have no jurisdiction. It is hoped to bring the Bill into the Dáil in the coming weeks and that we will be in a position to ratify the Hague Convention early in 2010. The Adoption Bill, which is a consolidated Bill, is complex, and for this reason has taken quite some time to bring to fruition.

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