Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 260: To ask the Minister for Health and Children, further to Parliamentary Question No. 253 of 7 October 2009, if she will report on her decision to suspend negotiations on an inter-country adoption bilateral agreement with Vietnam; when she expects the Government to be in a position to re-enter negotiations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3079/10]

Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 273: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if Vietnam has refused to continue negotiations on the conclusion of a new bilateral agreement; if she has decided to suspend indefinitely negotiations on a new agreement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3116/10]

Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 274: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the consideration she gave to negotiating a new agreement, incorporating within it provisions to address concerns resulting from the International Social Service report and the creation of structures to properly and transparently monitor the workings of such agreement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3117/10]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 260, 273 and 274 together.

In the process of re-negotiating the bilateral agreement on inter-country adoption with Vietnam serious issues came to light in relation to the Vietnamese adoption process. The issues were contained in the report on inter-country adoption commissioned by UNICEF and the Vietnamese Ministry of Justice and carried out by International Social Services (ISS). An earlier report published last August by the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) was also considered in this regard. The UNICEF/ISS report, which was accepted by the Vietnamese Government, "proposes that Vietnam suspends inter-country adoptions for the necessary period during the year 2010 that will enable it to ensure optimal implementation of the Hague Convention and to prepare for the entry into force of the new law on adoption in 2011". The Report also raises serious questions regarding adoption practices in Vietnam, including as follows:

(a) inter-country adoptions from Vietnam are essentially influenced by foreign demand, i.e. the availability of children who are "adoptable" abroad corresponds more to the existence of foreign prospective adopters than to the actual needs of "abandoned" and orphaned children;

(b) the circumstances under which babies become "adoptable" are invariably unclear and disturbing;

(c) the inter-country adoption system is grounded in a remarkably unhealthy relationship between the mediating agencies and specific residential facilities; and

(d) Governments and central authorities of "receiving countries" collectively at least, and individually in many instances have not effectively committed themselves to applying the basic principles of the Hague Convention or the recommendations of the treaty's practical operation, in their dealings with Vietnam.

Having considered the contents of the two reports the Government decided, on 13th of January, to suspend indefinitely negotiations on a new bilateral inter-country adoption agreement with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. As a result of this decision, all inter-country adoptions from Vietnam will be suspended until such time as the Adoption Bill 2009 has been enacted and both Ireland and Vietnam have ratified the provisions of the Hague Convention.