JOINT COMMITTEE ON HEALTH AND CHILDREN debate -
Tuesday, 8 Dec 2009

Discussion with Council of Irish Adoption Agencies.

Chairman

We are now resuming our meeting in public session to have a discussion with representatives of the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies. I welcome Ms Sheila Gallagher and her colleagues to the meeting. Before we begin, I must draw their attention to the fact that while members of the committee have absolute privilege, the same privilege does not apply to witnesses appearing before the committee. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House, or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

The witnesses are welcome and we look forward to hearing a synopsis of their paper. They have sent us a detailed presentation, which has been circulated to members. Unfortunately, Deputy Shatter has not had the benefit of that yet. I would ask Ms Gallagher to introduce her colleagues, followed by a synopsis of her paper. We will then take questions from members of the committee.

Ms Sheila Gallagher

I thank the Chairman for his welcome. I am accompanied by Ms Eileen Conway who is a member of the executive of the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies, and works in the Eastern Regional Health Authority. Ms Conway's experience in adoption spans many years and she has written a PhD on adoption policy practice in Ireland in the 1980s. Ms Hazel Douglas is a principal social worker with PACT, and has also been involved in the recent Trinity inter-country adoption study. Ms Niamh McHale is a social worker with Cúnamh with which she has practised for six years. Cúnamh is a voluntary adoption agency based in Ireland, which covers domestic adoption, information and tracing services. Ms Marian Bennett is a social worker in the Dublin/mid-Leinster area. She has over 30 years' experience in social work. She has recently been a member of the executive committee of the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies and is a member of the ethics committee. I am the chairperson of the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies and am based in Sligo.

Chairman

I ask Ms Gallagher to proceed with her presentation.

Ms Sheila Gallagher

I thank the committee for hearing our presentation. We hope that members of the committee will find what we have to say helpful in their role as legislators. The Council of Irish Adoption Agencies is a forum which includes all statutory and voluntary adoption agencies in Ireland. I will start by referring the committee to our recent publication entitled An Ethical Framework for Adoption in Ireland. This book promotes best practice in adoption and provides an ethical context for all our recommendations on the proposed legislation. This document endorses as a core principle that for children who for whatever reason cannot be reared by their birth and natural parents, adoption provides the strongest legal guarantee of permanence.

We very much welcome the Adoption Bill and the ratification and incorporation into Irish law of the Hague Convention. We believe as social work practitioners that adoption legislation should respond in an equitable and comprehensive way to the needs and rights of all parties to adoption, namely, adopted children and persons, birth and natural parents and adoptive parents.

Key proposals from the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies include making available pre-placement preparation and counselling to all parties to an adoption and the provision of post-adoption services by the State. In addition, adopted children should have additional needs linked to their adoptions and supports in helping their families to deal with such challenges must be provided for in this legislation. Furthermore, children in adoption proceedings should have a court-appointed guardian ad litem, in order that their voices can be heard. Moreover, birth and natural parents should not be required to adopt their own children and provisions should be included in the Bill to enable family adoptions.

The council is highly concerned about the need for timely decision-making in adoption placements. We submit that the provisions under the Adoption Bill 2009 lengthen the process even further through its requirement for the adoption authority to bring the matter to the High Court in the placement of the child for adoption. Council members also are concerned that the current legislation contains the right of adults aged 21 years and upwards or of a married couple, if one applicant is aged over 21 years, to an assessment for inter-country adoption. The only change the proposed Bill allows for is that this right should be extended to applications for assessment for domestic adoption. The practical implications of this measure are significant. They affect every level of service provision and have a direct impact on the value of equity. Council members seek to draw members' attention to the fact that this is an adult rights-based provision, rather than a child-centred practice.

While open adoption has been facilitated by adoption agencies for many years, it has no legislative basis and we seek an amendment to the Bill to allow the adoption authority, when making an interim order, to attach conditions in regard to ongoing access arrangements. This is particularly important for children who are adopted from foster care. The council is extremely concerned about the lack of a legislative basis for information and tracing services. While adoption agencies and the Adoption Board have been providing such services for many years, there is no legislative basis for it. As a result, the funding for such services is not guaranteed and the net effects are lengthy waiting times for adopted people and birth and natural parents to access a service. In some agencies, there is a three-year waiting period to see a social worker. This is unacceptable practice, particularly in the context of ageing parents and equity of access to services for all parties to an adoption.

In 2005, the Adoption Board introduced the national adoption contact preference register, which is currently operational, extremely successful and highly welcome. However, without a legislative basis its continuation cannot be guaranteed. Council members advocate on the basis of the right of adopted persons to have access to the same information on their origins as do other citizens. Therefore, we seek an amendment to the Bill to allow adopted adults to have access to their birth certificate and family history.

As for compatibility between domestic and inter-country adoption practices, the council makes a number of recommendations. We welcome the ratification of the Hague Convention and seek a number of amendments in this regard. We seek parity between the adoption register and the register of foreign adoptions in terms of standards to be met for the recognition of an adoption order and access to the registers. We seek an amendment to allow the High Court, in the event that under the law of the state in which an adoption was effected the adoption has been set aside or somehow rendered void, to review the status of the adoption order under Irish law. We seek the setting up of national mediation agencies to be monitored and regulated by the adoption authority. As we greatly welcome the ratification of the Hague Convention, we also wish to highlight the necessity to include a commitment to post-adoption services. This should also include a State-sponsored contact register in order that birth families and adopted persons over 18 can register their interest.

I refer members to our report on concerns in respect of inter-country adoption and to the recommendations of Professor Smolin with regard to implementing the Hague Convention. We consider that the constitutional referendum on recognising children's rights is absolutely essential in serving the best needs and interests of children. We understand that because of the constitutional position of the family, it has not been possible for some of the amendments we proposed in the Seanad to be accepted, which is regrettable to us as practitioners. Thus, adoption as a positive option is denied to children of a marriage. While the 1988 Act allows for this, the procedure is lengthy and cumbersome and we suggest that the child's eligibility to be placed for adoption should not be conditional on the martial status of the parent but rather assessed with regard to the best interests of the child. Open adoption was recommended by a Department of Health and Children review in 2003 and would be critically important to children who move from foster care to an adoptive family. The council looks forward to further discussions on the issues we have raised in our submission.

Deputy Alan Shatter

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their contribution. I do not know whether the witnesses were present this morning when the joint committee heard presentations from a variety of different groups but it is blindingly clear that all who are concerned about adoption are making similar points on the legislation's inadequacies and on where amendments are required to it. I wish to raise one or two matters with the witnesses because members have covered much of this ground previously. Moreover, during my contribution to the Second Stage debate on the Adoption Bill, I also raised a large number of the issues raised by the witnesses.

I wish to raise two issues the witnesses did not mention on which, as practitioners, they may wish to comment. In respect of inter-country adoptions, a wide variety of timeframes are applicable if one seeks an assessment. One particular problem is that depending on one's location, it might take six months or three to four years for an assessment to begin. The legislation does not prescribe a timeframe within which an assessment must be undertaken, whether for foreign or domestic adoptions. I understand the phraseology employed is "as soon as practicable". The Hague Convention places a more onerous obligation on the undertakings of assessment but not a timeframe. Does the council have an opinion as to what would constitute a reasonable timeframe for which those who seek to be assessed for adoption should be obliged to wait? How long should an assessment period take? I have considerable experience of people going through this process and find that many of them are distressed by it. They find that the period of waiting for something to happen takes far too long and that the entire process is too drawn out. I seek the witnesses' comments in this regard.

This Bill seeks to reflect arrangements that are operating at present without a statutory basis and which, as addressed the Bill, are grossly defective. I will take the foreign adoption process as an example but this procedure now will apply statutorily to both foreign and domestic adoptions. At present, if I wish to be assessed as a prospective adoptive parent, I must undertake an assessment procedure in which a draft assessment report is prepared and then is referred to a committee. Having been referred to a committee, the applicants to adopt are entitled to make observations on the draft assessment report and ultimately the HSE committee decides whether to recommend their suitability. At present, these committees operate in private. There is no transparency, no qualifications are required to serve on one and the procedures they operate vary depending on the personalities who sit on them. It is envisaged that this format will be preserved and maintained under the proposed legislation. It does not even specify particular qualifications for people to sit on such committees that will make fundamental recommendations that affect people's lives. What is the purpose of these committees? If a properly and fully-qualified social worker with adoption experience produces an assessment report, why should such a recommendation then be second-guessed by a committee of people who may not even be qualified to comment on it? Under this legislation, the Minister's three best friends or whoever happens to go to the dogs with the local HSE manager could be appointed to the committee. The legislation contains nothing on this issue. Is this is of concern to the witnesses? This is an important question.

Over the years, I have met people, both married and unmarried, who have sought to be assessed for adoption but who evidently have had personality clashes with their assessing social workers. How should that sort of problem be addressed to ensure that a report, when finally prepared, is not affected by the human element that can impact on occasion?

I have also come across situations where persons have received an assessment outcome designating them as unsuitable to adopt. I am sure there are occasions where there are persons unsuitable to adopt and the assessment is correct. However, there are other occasions I have come across where one can only describe the reasons given for their being deemed unsuitable as either exotic or ideological, and they have ended up in hearings in front of the Adoption Board where it has asked for the social workers concerned to make presentations and for a presentation by the adopters.

There are three or four problems in this area. The first is there have been instances where the Adoption Board has declared persons suitable where the social assessment report has stated they are unsuitable, and they are left in a position where they have an assessment report that states one thing and a declaration that states the opposite. This legislation does not address that issue. Is that a concern for Ms Gallagher and does she wish to comment?

Under the European Convention on Human Rights, the Adoption Board received a legal opinion from senior counsel three years ago which stated that where there was this type of hearing, the social workers who attend before the Adoption Board should be available to answer questions put on behalf of the applicants to adopt and, equally, the applicants to adopt should be entitled to respond to questions that may be put by the social work side. It is my understanding that social workers have refused to participate in this process, that what they will do is attend on their own in the Adoption Board but they are not agreeable to questions being put to them. I do not think they want the prospective adopters present at this hearing. The adopters are heard at a separate time of the day to when the social workers attend as a matter of practice. This is the accommodation the board has put in place. This is a problem that will continue under this legislation. I would be interested in Ms Gallagher's view of that as well. If persons are deemed unsuitable to adopt, it is important, whether under the Adoption Board or new adoption authority, if there is to be a hearing that such a hearing is conducted on a basis that recognises basic principles of natural justice. It seems these are not issues that are being aired at this stage.

There are two issues in the context of domestic adoptions which I want to ask Ms Gallagher about. At present, most adoptions are family adoptions. I agree entirely with the view the council representatives present and others have expressed, namely, that where, as occurs most frequently, a natural or biological mother is adopting jointly with a husband who is unrelated to the child, there should be a different procedure. A mother should not go through an adoption of her own child. There are reports dating back to 1984 which recommend changing that. I agree with the council representative's view on that. Does Ms Gallagher see a form of guardianship order as the alternative way of dealing with that issue? If so, should that be an order that would need to be granted by the courts through the District Court or is that something in these special circumstances with which the new adoption authority should deal after there has been an appropriate assessment of the husband who is seeking guardianship? That might be a preferable procedure to some form of court application where a judge with no special training will inevitably end up automatically making these orders.

The second, and final, issue I want to raise relates to the practice of domestic adoption. In a domestic adoption, which is not a family adoption and where it is a stranger adopting, a mother signs an agreement to place. One then goes through the placement procedure and, ultimately, there will be a consent to adopt, and this procedure is preserved in the Bill. Over the past number of decades there have been a number of difficult and traumatic court cases where mothers changed their minds.

In Australia there is a different system. In Australia, once a child is placed with adopters, and provided the mother has received full and independent counselling and advice, after a period of time has elapsed a situation can arise where one cannot withhold one's consent to the adoption proceeding. Other countries have a situation where one agrees to a placement and after a period of time one's agreement becomes irrevocable.

We are retaining this open-ended situation where even after one has given the final consent, there can be a change of mind which can ultimately result in a court case. Would Ms Gallagher like to see a different procedure? Does she have any concerns about recent court judgments on adoption in which the Supreme Court, in particular, has started to place a renewed emphasis on the blood link as opposed to attachment and bonding and the dangers to a child in breaking the bonds?

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan

Many of the recommendations Ms Gallagher makes are ones with which at this stage we all agree. We have heard some of them previously and I will not go back over those again. She raised the issue of the length of time it takes for assessments in different parts of the country. In particular, we were told earlier about the differences in time, even for the commencement of the assessment. Should there be a provision in the legislation, such as a statutory upper time limit, setting out when an assessment would start and, possibly, how long an assessment should take so that there are not such differences in different parts of the country? Does she have a view on whether there should be a provision in the legislation on timing?

Another question relates to the severe shortage of social workers in the country. The Ryan report, for example, recommended an extra 270 social workers specifically for the area of child protection. Am I correct in stating this issue arises also in the area of adoption? That is merely a practical question.

I want to follow-up on some of the issues of greater clarity and greater rights to information raised by the Adoption Rights Alliance. Specifically, it suggested that in the legislation there should be a right to know that one was adopted. Is Ms Gallagher fully supportive of that suggestion? I would be interested in her views on whether the Freedom of Information Act should apply, obviously, with the kinds of restrictions that are already in place in terms of personal information not being given to those who should not have it.

On the question of religion, it seems that adoption agencies tend to be streamlined in accordance with religious denomination. Is that the case? Is there a need to change that in the context of modern Ireland? I do not know whether Ms Gallagher has a view on that, but I would be interested in it.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

Ms Gallagher represents adoption agencies. Who are they and how many are there in the country?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

The Council of Irish Adoption Agencies was set up nearly 40 years ago. It is now a forum where all adoption agencies come together — all of the HSE agencies plus eight voluntary adoption agencies. All of the HSE agencies are represented at council.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

Are there eight voluntary agencies?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

At this stage there is: Cúnamh, St. Patrick's Guild, PACT, ourselves — St. Attracta's, St. Mura's, and Bessborough in Cork and Clarecare. Sorry, there are seven.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

It is not quite private, but——

Ms Sheila Gallagher

They are voluntary adoption agencies that would get most of their funding from the HSE in terms of staffing, and they would be spread geographically across the country.

Deputy Alan Shatter

They would deal with domestic adoptions, is that correct?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

Both PACT and Clarecare would also deal with inter-country adoption.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

Do they operate within the Adoption Act?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

They do. They are all registered adoption societies under the Adoption Act 1952.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

Is there inspection and audit?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

The Adoption Board is responsible. We, the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies, do not have any regulatory authority. Ours is a forum of social work practitioners. The regulatory body is the Adoption Board and all of the agencies operating would, whenever they came into existence, have been registered with the Adoption Board.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

The agencies reported to the board but the board does not ask what was the process. Is it self-regulating?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

The Adoption Board has regulatory authority but what it does in practice might be slightly different. The new legislation wants to make that more of a requirement in terms of maintenance of records. That is one of the issues in the legislation. The board regulates all adoption agencies. The other agency is Helping Hands Adoption Mediation Agency, which is also a registered adoption and mediation agency in Cork.

Ms Marian Bennett

The board has deregistered adoption societies in the past 25 years.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

Where they do not function any more.

Ms Marian Bennett

Yes, for a number of reasons but the board has a regulatory function.

Chairman

The earlier groups made reference to a number of the agencies being moribund. How many agencies are active? Are some still in existence but not functioning?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

There are seven registered adoption agencies. Cúnamh is one of the largest in the Dublin area.

Chairman

The questions can be taken together.

Ms Marian Bennett

I will address Deputy Shatter's question about local adoption committees. The system as it operates in Ireland is informed very much by international best practice and I refer the Deputy to the British Association for Adoption Fostering document, Effective Panels, on which our system is based.

He asked about the functions of the committee. It sets out standards and it rules out subjective bias. One of the other scenarios he mentioned about applicants feeling they are subjected to bias by their social worker, there are any number of ways that can and should be dealt with, not least of which is to discuss it directly with the social worker's line management and to go further if they are not satisfied.

Deputy Alan Shatter

I am interested in this area and I do not want Ms Bennett to get me wrong, but there is something terribly naïve about what she said because I have dealt with stressed people going through the adoption process who have found themselves in that position. They feel their entire life is dependent on not saying anything that upsets the social workers they are working with, even in circumstances in which they feel there is a problem. When they do, my experience has been the social worker is always defended by the line manager and the parents feel if they exacerbate the situation, there is absolutely no possibility they will come out of the process with a favourable report. I know people who have been caught in that situation and whom the Adoption Board deemed suitable. There is a genuine problem here that may not be perceived fully. Anyone seeking to be assessed for adoption feels as if they are suppliants, that their entire life is depending on what this one person or committee might decide. They should perceive it differently but that is the way they perceive this. This is a problem and what Ms Bennett outlined does not work.

Ms Marian Bennett

I am not sure anything in the proposed legislation addresses the difficulty to which the Deputy refers. The internal mechanism for dealing with concerns is the issue. The Deputy's reference to the membership of the local adoption committees does not reflect my understanding of what happens on them. They are multidisciplinary and, with the exception of representatives of adoptive parents and foster carers, each one of them has professional training in child care.

Deputy Alan Shatter

But that is not a requirement in the legislation.

Ms Marian Bennett

The council's view on that is we will support whatever is needed to support agencies to do the job in the best interest of the children, whether that is through ministerial regulation, Adoption Board regulation or to be included in the legislation.

Deputy Alan Shatter

There is nothing prescriptive in the legislation to require one to have particular qualifications, experience or background to be a member of these committees nor does the Minister have regulatory powers in this regard in the legislation, as drafted.

Ms Sheila Gallagher

We support any recommendation in the best interest of the children.

Deputy Alan Shatter

That is central.

Ms Sheila Gallagher

We do not have an argument regarding foster care panels.

Ms Hazel Douglas

The process is imperfect and that applies across the board to every situation in which people are assessed. This does not only apply to Ireland and adoption and it also applies to foster care and other situations and there is always a human element in it. We are building in safeguards to ensure that the human element is minimised as much as possible and there is an appeals process within an agency and outside it. One cannot do better than that. I accept the comment about professionalism and qualifications.

The Deputy asked how long it would take to complete an assessment and the optimum time. I suggest between 18 months and two years. I have not had an opportunity to consult other people but we have a standardised framework, which was set down by the Adoption Board in 2000. We stick rigidly to that and we try to fulfil every stage of that process.

The initial stage is about information giving, then there is another phase where people register and then there is a phase where they must put in their application form and be declared eligible to apply and that takes time. They then have to go into a period of training, which usually takes six sessions but it can take up to three months. The person then has to be allocated to a social worker. The minimum normal period for assessment is between five and six months. A report is then written up.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan

Correspondence we received suggested that in some parts of the country if parents are adopting a second child, there are variations in the process. Could Ms Douglas clarify that?

Ms Hazel Douglas

When one applies the second time around, one does not need to do the six training sessions.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan

But it is different in some parts of the country.

Ms Hazel Douglas

No, once one has done the basic training, one does not repeat it no matter where one goes. The system is the same for everybody. If a couple applies again, there is an option of one training day. If they reapply, they would have less work and ground to cover with the social worker because most of that work would have been covered the first time round. It could be a shorter process.

That is the optimum in terms of putting together resources, manpower and ensuring nothing goes wrong in the system. Things go wrong in the system because it is imperfect. People get sick and there are delays for different reasons. Assessments take longer than we set them out to be because issues vary from couple to couple and some couples take longer to process. Sometimes issues come up that halt the system and cases have to go on hold. It is a complex process.

Ms Sheila Gallagher

It has been well documented that there are regional differences and that is down to resources and not only social work practices. As Deputy O'Sullivan said, it is down to vacancies for social workers in other areas.

With regard to setting a timeframe for an assessment, our basic position is that the right to an assessment in the proposed legislation and the 1991 legislation is an adult-based provision for an adoption service. My serious concern is the issues around the post-adoption services. Both information and tracing services are not legislated for. According to our understanding on the basis of our submission to the Seanad, they were not going to be legislated for on the basis of the constitutional issues around them and we are extremely concerned, as adoption agencies, that the discussion should also focus on that. There is no legislative basis for adopted people and birth parents to access a service and we are extremely concerned about that issue.

Ms Marian Bennett

The timeframe for assessment is affected in part by the statutory right to assessment for anybody aged 21 years and upwards, regardless of age, health status, criminal history or finances. In Ireland, an application for an assessment for inter-country adoption requires a full assessment. In many situations where considerable additional challenges might be involved, an assessment can take four times the amount of time and resources that a less challenging assessment might take. We need to face up to that reality and realise how this takes from all other areas of the adoption service.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan

Is there any solution to that, such as a preliminary assessment that would identify those who are not suitable? Is that too simplistic a solution?

Ms Marian Bennett

The Adoption Board no longer accepts preliminary assessments. There was a time when there was a difference between initial assessment and full assessment. However, because the Adoption Board is the decision-making body, it needs a full assessment carried out to consider the application under each of the five standards in order to make a decision. In short, the answer is "No", that is not an option.

Ms Sheila Gallagher

Deputy Shatter raised the issue of procedures of the Adoption Board and the representation of social workers at Adoption Board meetings. I may be corrected on this, but I understand social workers have not refused to co-operate in any way with the Adoption Board or to be present when applicants are there. As I understand it, they are the procedures of the adoption authority itself. I have checked this out with other colleagues and found there was no embargo.

Deputy Alan Shatter

The board put the current procedure in place because of previous difficulties on that issue. It was a way to overcome the difficulties.

Ms Sheila Gallagher

That is not my understanding of the issue.

Ms Hazel Douglas

One of our major concerns is the lack of standards and guidelines set by the Adoption Board on which to base assessments. If these guidelines were in place, some of these difficulties would not arise, because we would be able to assess a couple and know what the board response would be when the assessment went to the board. Currently we do not know so we end up in a situation of conflict. This would not happen in many cases if the standards and guidelines were in place.

Chairman

Are there any other questions to be addressed?

Ms Niamh McHale

The Chairman raised the issue of agencies such as Cúnamh. It is a domestic adoption service which also provides pregnancy counselling for parents considering adoption and an information and trace service, but there is no legislative basis for our information and trace services. Our agency has a very long waiting list of up to three years, of people interested in finding out their background or tracing their birth parents. It can be very difficult for people who decide to search for their birth parents or parents who decide to search for children given up for adoption to have to wait another three years before this can happen.

Deputy Alan Shatter

Is that mainly due to lack of resources?

Ms Niamh McHale

Yes, it is due to lack of resources. In part the reason we want our service to have a legislative basis is in the hope funding will be provided for the service.

Ms Eileen Conway

I would like to support what Ms McHale has just said. I work for the HSE in Dublin on an information and tracing team. We hold the records for St. Patrick's Mother and Baby Home, so we have thousands of records of mothers who gave birth, from approximately 1900. We provide a service to those people when they come back to us, whether they were adopted or were placed prior to legal adoption or were boarded out. Some of our records relate to people who went into the industrial school system. We have reduced our waiting list significantly over the past few years and it is now a matter of months. However, in the past 12 months we have taken over the records of what was the Rotunda Girls Aid Society, RGAS. It was one of the societies mentioned earlier by the Deputy which has closed down. There was a time lapse between the time the society closed down and the records came to the HSE and so we have a very large list of almost 200 people waiting for information. Some of those people have been waiting six, seven or eight years, which is unacceptable. We will work on reducing that waiting list and we have received funds and one person has been designated to work on it. However, we would like to see a provision put into the Bill whereby people would be entitled to this service.

Deputy Alan Shatter

The Bill should provide for a statutory service where all the records would be brought together and proper procedures put in place. This would be preferable to a situation where different agencies deal with different records going back historically. Cúnamh has records, the HSE has records and now it has more records from the RGAS. The records of another agency that has closed also went to the HSE. There is a huge logistical problem with regard to dealing with these records and this is very unfair to people who are trying to trace their background.

Ms Eileen Conway

There is excellent liaison between the various groups. As the Deputy may know, in the past many birth mothers placed more than one child for adoption. There are often sibling groups of two, three or four, which is always a surprise to the adopted person. This week, I was in touch with Cúnamh because of a sibling who will meet with another sibling. There is significant contact between us. Therefore, I do not think the fact there are different agencies is a problem in practice.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

Apologies for my ignorance, but I will not get the opportunity to ask this again. Can anyone set up an adoption agency and how does somebody go about setting up an agency?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

The last adoption agency that was set up was the Helping Hands Adoption Mediation Agency. It applied and was registered under the 1952 Act as an adoption agency. The Adoption Board requires that an agency must have certain standards and procedures in place to be registered as an adoption agency. I am not sure how far back Cúnamh was established.

Ms Niamh McHale

We go back to 1913. Like the HSE, we have records of children who were boarded out or placed in homes and we became an adoption agency once the 1952 legislation was enacted.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

I do not mean what I am about to say as a criticism of the groups here, because clearly they are aware of the work that needs to be done with regard to records and contact between parents and children, even where those children are now adults. However, it seems the system is open to abuse, particularly if it is so easy to set up a tracing agency and to be accepted by the Adoption Board.

Ms Marian Bennett

The board sets the conditions that must be met and these are quite stringent. Very few new agencies have been set up in recent years.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

I asked earlier whether monitoring was carried out and about who contacts whom. Does the agency contact the Adoption Board or does it contact the agency and check to see standards are in place? It is all very well to say there are stringent conditions, but who monitors the situation, particularly if there is no provision in the legislation to enforce the conditions?

Ms Sheila Gallagher

One of our suggested amendments makes that very point, that there should be monitoring. We support the monitoring and regulation of every adoption agency. There should be standards in terms of practice and social work practitioners and any other practitioners that are needed. There is no argument with regard to the need for regulation.

Deputy Alan Shatter

I wish to return to an issue to which a response was not given. How should we address legally in the legislation a situation where the new adoption authority, like the current Adoption Board, determines someone is suitable to adopt, contrary to an assessment report that suggests the person is unsuitable? We then have individuals whose assessment report states one thing and whose declaration states the opposite.

Ms Marian Bennett

That is what is happening currently. Overseas countries appear to give great heed to the contents of the social worker's assessment report. That would reflect the international status of social work in this area of work. International bodies including the ISS, the Child Welfare League of America, state that we are the people to do that work.

Deputy Alan Shatter

Ms Bennett is missing the point. We have an adoption board that makes a decision as to whether someone is suitable ultimately. It is presented with a report but it is the decision-maker. We are now going to have an adoption authority which will be the decision-maker. It may not be a large number but a small number of people whom the Adoption Board has determined are suitable to be adopters have disagreed with the reasons given as to unsuitability applying the five principles in the assessment report. I have seen some of these reports and one or two of the reasons given have been distinctly odd. I should declare an interest in that as a lawyer I have represented some prospective adopters before the Adoption Board and some of the reasons given are so bizarre that it was difficult for anyone to take them seriously. The Adoption Board certainly did not take them seriously. The difficulty then arises that the Adoption Board, later to be the adoption authority, declares someone as being suitable but the social work report states he or she is not suitable. Ms Bennett is now saying if they try and adopt abroad it will be a social assessment report that will be looked at, which means we do not need an adoption authority at all, just social workers issuing reports.

The purpose of the adoption authority is to make an ultimate adjudication and hear issues that need to be addressed. Where does this conflict with facilitating the individual or the couple adopting abroad, that someone prepares a social work assessment report for them which reflects the decision made by the adoption authority as it will be, or the Adoption Board as it is now?

Ms Marian Bennett

There is nothing to stop the Adoption Board doing that now. In the past it may have added an addendum but certainly I do not think this happens now.

Deputy Alan Shatter

Is Ms Bennett certain? The board issues a letter stating that it has formed the opposite view to that contained in the assessment report but the letter does not contain all the detail of the assessment report and people deemed suitable are then left in a limbo and in an impossible situation.

Ms Eileen Conway

If a social worker has done what he or she considers a thorough assessment, has had good supervision and has come up with a recommendation, how could he or she in all moral conscience turn around and write something different because——

Deputy Alan Shatter

The answer——

Ms Eileen Conway

If Deputy Shatter would allow me to finish this point——-

Deputy Alan Shatter

——-is that the Adoption Board has actually made findings that factual conclusions reached by the social worker based on background have been entirely wrong and yet the HSE and the social worker then still insist that the facts that were wrong remain in the report.

Chairman

I ask Deputy Shatter to allow Ms Conway respond.

Ms Eileen Conway

I wish to make the point that from the information and tracing side of the work we see the results of the decisions that social workers took in the past. Not all of the placements that were made were good ones. If someone's life has not turned out well, one would be very cautious about reversing a negative recommendation. No social worker arrives at a negative recommendation easily.

Deputy Alan Shatter

Ms Conway has just said in the same breath she has seen in the past decisions made by social workers that were wrong.

Chairman

The Deputy has made his point. We will conclude this session now.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan

I have twice asked this question about the role, if any, played by religion and I am purely curious as in the past it did play a part.

Ms Hazel Douglas

PACT is the only Protestant organisation left in the equation. In my view this is something that is moving on. I came into adoption when there were 19 voluntary adoption agencies and one Protestant one, that is, 18 Catholic agencies. Our agency has progressed over the years and we have developed all services. This is not a plug for our agency but just to say that all services are built-in with regard to adoption. We are pushing very hard today for the fact that post-adoption support is essential. We have this service for domestic adoptions and it is very badly needed for inter-country adoptions but this has not been addressed in the legislation. The research unit in Trinity College has reported that this is essential but it has not happened. Our information and tracing service was set up to look into and support children within the Protestant community who were in mother and baby homes all around the country. It was set up as a denominational service because it was different and because the Protestant Church was different and the reasons things happened were different. It was a central place for people to come to represent that. As an agency, PACT would still like to hold onto that piece in that we have the understanding about all those families, the reasons they came about, what was going on in the Protestant Church at the time or whatever. We would hold that piece to continue the work of the agency but the agency is moving into being a professional body and that is the way it has to be.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan

The reason I ask the question is that we live in a multicultural society now. I want to be sure that parents who do not belong to one of the traditional Irish denominations or are completely non-denominational or of another denomination, can adopt.

Ms Hazel Douglas

We do lots of other things. There is no question of denomination being involved and most of the birth mothers who come to our agency are multicultural anyway so we are accommodating that diversity. The whole area is opening up and progressing, and all the services have to be built into an adoption. That is the way it has to be for everybody or else there can be no moving on.

Chairman

Do the witnesses wish to make any brief concluding remarks?

Ms Marian Bennett

Deputy Shatter asked a couple of questions and I wish to reply briefly. The Council of Irish Adoption Agencies would support the idea of a limited time in which a consent to an adoption can be withdrawn. Some 26 weeks from the time of the written consent was what the council considered would be a very liberal period of time while at the same time allowing the birth mother time in which to realise the consequences of her decision.

With regard to Supreme Court rulings, the council will welcome a constitutional amendment which recognises the rights of children to protection and places the rights of the child at the centre of the Constitution. In our view this would make a significant difference to Supreme Court rulings in respect of decisions about children.

Deputy Alan Shatter

Specifically with regard to adoption, does the witness think it would be helpful if that constitutional amendment gave some recognition to the right of a child to continuity of care?

Ms Marian Bennett

With regard to adoption, we recommended to the Oireachtas committee back in 2005 that the child would be the only member of the family to be accorded rights under the Constitution and that from those rights of the child, the parents' responsibilities to care for the child would flow. We did not recommend anything more specific than that but we believe this should lie at the heart of it.

Chairman

I thank the delegation for the presentation to the committee which will be very enlightening and very useful to members as we consider Committee Stage of the Bill in due course.

Deputy Alan Shatter

I wish to apologise to the witnesses if anyone feels I gave them a grilling but these are issues which I was very anxious to tease out with the council.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

The Deputy should apologise to everyone.

Sitting suspended at 2.58 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.