I move:
That Seanad Éireann takes note of the Submission to the Government in relation to Reforms in the Adoption System, made in June 1982 by six voluntary organisations, and requests urgent action from the Government on the principal proposals contained in that submission.
I raise this matter in an entirely nonpartisan way. It is a matter which affects only a minority of the population but it affects them in a most profound way. It behoves all of us who debate the motion today to see whether we can devise a collective will to make progress in this area rather than engage in any form of partisan discussion or debate.
The submission referred to in the motion was prepared by a group representing a number of highly responsible organisations, all of whom have considerable skill in the area of adoption and in the area of child care services generally. The organisations in question are the Federation of Services to Unmarried Parents and their Children, the Central Council of Catholic Adoption Societies, Children First, the Adoptive Parents' Association of Ireland, CARE and Cherish. The submission to the Government was made earlier this month.
The proposals made in this submission are broadly similar in content to those contained in the supplementary report to the final report of the Task Force on Child Care Services published in 1980. As somebody who was involved with the Task Force on Child Care Services in their initial years, I regret that the Task Force as a whole did not find it possible to deal with the question of adoption in their complete report. I understand the difficulties associated with dealing with this question, and I also understand that time was a factor. I do believe that those who wrote the supplementary report were correct when they made the point that adoption is, after all, one part of a range of comprehensive child care services and that the Task Force therefore should have seen it as such and, despite the difficulties, should have dealt with it for that reason.
The motion is before us today not only because reform of our adoption laws and system is long overdue and is recognised as such, but also because the previous Government had prepared and the present Government have committed themselves to the introduction of a new Children's Bill. In this regard I share the view expressed in the introduction to the submission to the Government which states:
We consider that adoption ought not to be something separate from the other child care services, and that to as great an extent as possible appropriate reforms of the Adoption System should be included in the provisions of the promised Children's Bill.
There are two suggestions contained in that quotation from the introduction to the submission to the Government. Firstly, adoption should be seen as part of, or as an option within, a comprehensive range of child care services. Historically, of course, we know adoption was seen as largely a legal procedure based principally on the needs of single mothers and adoptive parents. Traditionally it was seen primarily as a legal device for solving the twin problems of illegitimacy on one hand and infertility on the other.
Today, however, our perception of adoption has changed. It is now seen as a child-centred service, its primary objective being to meet the social and emotional needs of children requiring substitute families. Seen in this way, it is appropriate that responsibility for adoption services should be transferred from the Minister for Justice to the Minister for Health, who will in future have departmental responsibility for a broad range of child care services generally. Traditionally and for as long as adoption was seen primarily as a legal device, it could be argued certainly that adoption was appropriately the responsibility of the Department of Justice. Given our new awareness of the role and functions of adoption, however, its child-centredness and the fact it can be seen as one option in a range of child care services, it is appropriate in my view and in the view of those who made the submission to the Government that responsibility for it should be transferred to the Minister for Health. I am aware that approximately a fortnight ago there was a brief announcement in one daily paper to the effect that responsibility for adoption was being or would be transferred from the Minister for Justice to the Minister for Health. I hope that in the course of the debate the Minister might be in a position to clarify this, because it was not clear to me from that newspaper report what exactly had happened or was intended to happen. In so far as it is the intention of the Government to transfer responsibility for adoption to the Minister for Health I certainly welcome it and see it as a significant step forward. I would certainly welcome clarification from the Minister in regard to what is happening.
The second suggestion in the passage I quoted earlier is that adoption reform should be included in the proposed new Children's Bill. This is profoundly important. If it is the case that adoption should be seen as part of overall child care services and if we are, as I understand it, about to have a new Children's Bill covering almost all, if not all, other aspects of child care administration and law, then I would argue strongly that it is appropriate that adoption reform should be included in the context of that Bill. I believe that the previous Minister for Health had this precisely in mind while preparing the proposed Children's Bill. I would certainly argue strongly that the present Government when they introduce the Bill should see to it that adoption reform will be included. I would therefore ask the Minister if he would give us in the course of the debate some indication as to whether it is the intention of the Government to deal with this matter in the context of the proposed Bill.
In addition to these broad recommendations, the submission to the Government contains a range of specific proposals all of which seem to me to have considerable merit. At the simplest level, there are a number of proposals concerned with the administration of the adoption services in addition to the transfer of responsibility from the Department of Justice to the Department of Health. These are referred to in pages 6 and 7 of the submission and I will refer to them briefly here. It is suggested — and I think all of us would agree, as well as most of the personnel involved in adoption procedures — that it is important in the course of reforming the law that we introduce regulations to ensure the periodic registration of adoption societies. This is a straightforward and essential safeguard and does not pose any threat to anybody, but it would see to it that certain minimum standards of practice were laid down and adhered to. This is not to say that one is criticising what is happening now. I would think it to be an essential safeguard for the adoption system as a whole in the long run.
The submission also refers in this context to the drawing up of comprehensive guidelines and statutory regulations for the operation of adoption societies. The submission states:
...proper functioning cannot be adequately ensured without stringent control on the operation of adoption societies. These regulations would include such matters as the scope of the society's activities; the nature of its resources; effectiveness of organisation; accepted standards of practice for pre-placement assessment; placement arrangement and post-placement supervision.
These suggestions in the context of comprehensive guidelines are sensible and should be acted upon in the form of giving them a greater formulation than they have at the moment.
Thirdly, the submission refers to the need to provide adequate funding for the adoption societies. That is a sensible and self-evident idea which does not need development.
Fourthly, it refers to the need for research into adoption in this country because very little of a comprehensive nature has been done to date. These proposals seem to me to be both simple and sensible. It is inconceivable that anybody in the House would have any objections to acting in the shortest possible period of time.
The submission refers to a number of other matters of significance which I would like to mention briefly. At present there is no statutory provision relating to the length of time which ought to elapse between placement of a child for adoption and the final completion of the adoption order. Traditionally it appears that the average period between placement and completion of the adoption process has been of the order of six months. More recently the minimum period has been extended to ten months, and the average period appears to be of the order of 12 months between placement and adoption. This period, it is suggested in the submission — and I think most people concerned with adoption services and practices would agree — does appear to be too long. It is too long for the natural mother, too long for the adoptive parents, and it seems reasonable to suggest it is too long for the child itself. In this regard I would refer to the comments made on page 8 of the submission, which are as follows:
The natural mother has to face the decision to place her child for adoption, and later must decide whether she wants the adoption to go to completion. Even if she makes the latter decision earlier on, it is effectively still with her until the adoption order is made, because she can revoke the decision at any time until then. This preoccupation may interfere with or postpone other decisions which she should be making for her own future.
Therefore, it seems reasonable to suggest that the average period at present does seem to be too long from the point of view of the natural mother, whose feelings and concerns also have to be taken account of here.
As far as prospective adopters are concerned the submission states:
Prospective adopters feel that they are on trial until the adoption order is made, and know that if they are found wanting or if the natural mother does not give her consent or withdraws a consent given they may lose the child. This may interfere with the bonding between the intended adopters and the child, and with full integration of the child into the family.
That too seems to be a reasonable and sensible point of view.
Thirdly, the submission states:
The child, whatever its age, may suffer as a result of delay in or failure of bonding and integration into the family. If the child is anyway mature, it will also be troubled by doubts about its own future, in addition to having to cope with changes in its life brought about by the placement.
For these reasons I would agree with the suggestion in the submission that the minimum placement period should be reduced by regulation, and it would seem reasonable that the period between placement and the making of the adoption order should be reduced to something of the order of three to six months. That period would provide adequate safeguard while at the same time dealing with the problems to which I referred.
On the question of eligibility of children for adoption, the submissions are again sensible and the ideas are worth acting on. The supplementary report of the Task Force to which I referred earlier said that the present upper age limit of seven should be changed to 21. That is certainly worth thinking about, although it does seem strange that one should be talking about the possibility of adoption up to that age. In certain circumstances it is not as strange as it might seem and we know already that while in practice the upper age limit is seven, that can be waived and is waived in special circumstances. In the context of the proposed legislation the Government should consider raising the age of eligibility for adoption.
On a more contentious issue the submission refers to the impossibility under present legislation of adoption for legitimate children, except in one or two special circumstances. As a general rule legitimate children are not available for adoption at present. This practice of exclusion of legitimate children from adoption arises presumably from the traditional view of adoption to which I referred earlier; that is to say, that it is a legal device linking unmarried mothers with infertile families. If we see adoption as part of an overall child care service and as one option within a range of facilities or solutions available for children who require substitute families, then it makes no sense any longer to consider it wise to preclude legitimate children from the right to adoption. The law therefore should not continue to discriminate in relation to eligibility of children for legal adoption on the basis of the marital status of the child's parents.
In this regard I would like very briefly to quote from the supplementary report of the Task Force on Child Care Services, section 4.7.5 of which states:
We do not think that permitting the legal adoption of children whose parents are married to each other would result in parents placing their children for adoption who would otherwise wish to have to bring them up themselves. The universal devotion of parents to their children is one of the strongest bonds known to the human race. It is as unlikely to be weakened by permitting legal adoption as it is to be strengthened by prohibiting it. Parents do not willingly part with their children permanently unless in the most exceptional circumstances. Such exceptional circumstances do exist, however, and refusing to acknowledge that they do will not prevent them from arising or prevent children going into care as a result of them. Its only result is that some children will stay in care throughout their childhood who could instead be growing up happily in adoptive families.
The authors of the supplementary report go on to recommend that the law should be changed to permit the adoption of children whose parents are legally married to each other. This is important, because we know that there are significant numbers of children who require substitute family care but who cannot have recourse to the option of adoption because their parents are married. I am thinking here of children whose parents show no concern for them and do not wish to care for them, and children who have been as a result taken to care. Under the present system the only option is residential care or long-term fostering or some combination of both. It is wrong to discriminate against these children by preventing them from having the security which adoption can give to them in that situation. It should be dealt with in the context of general reform of child care.
I am aware that the constitutionality of this proposal is in doubt, and that is referred to in the submission before us. But if that is the case we must bear in mind that the Constitution can be changed by way of referendum if we feel strongly about the issue. We talk about other referenda at present which seem to me to be less pressing than this one. There is doubt about whether this is constitutionally inoperable, and before we move to the point of considering a referendum we should have the matter tested in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court are quite capable of making a decision on this if it is put to them. We should do so if we are to provide the prospect of adoption for legitimate children, which child care experts and people dealing with children in residential institutions deem it desirable for them to have.
The constitutional issue which I refer to also affects the law in relation to dispensing with the consent of the parent to the adoption of a child. The Adoption Act, 1951 permits the consent of the parent to be dispensed with (a) if the parent cannot be found or (b) if the parent is incapable, by reason of mental infirmity, of giving consent. The 1974 Adoption Act made the additional provision that in dealing with any matter in relation to adoption the Adoption Board or a court of law shall "regard the welfare of the child as the first and paramount consideration". The constitutionality of this provision of the 1974 Act also appears to be in doubt and excessively vague, although it is obviously moving in the right direction in terms of policy.
The submission to the Government referred to in the motion suggests that it may be necessary to clarify and extend the exceptional circumstances in which parental consent to adoption may be compulsorily dispensed with. I agree with the formulation presented in the supplementary report of the Task Force in sections 4.7.14 to 4.7.16. We should move towards some formulation which is more explicit than the one contained in the 1974 Act to something similar to that suggested in the supplementary report of the Task Force, which states:
The consent of a parent (or any other relevant person) which would normally be required for the adoption of a child should be dispensed with if, considering all the factors relevant to the needs of the child and the wishes and circumstances of the parent, the child's long-term welfare requires that he should be legally adopted by another family, and any one of the following grounds is established:
(a) that the parent has not cared for the child herself or does not propose to care for the child herself or to make arrangements for his appropriate care by other persons;
(b) that the child is already being cared for in another family and that his interests require that he should remain in that family;
(c) that the parent is unable because of grave incapacity to provide a home for the child or to give him adequate care, affection and protection, during his childhood.
That kind of formulation, which may seem somewhat extreme, is valid and desirable in the context of dispensing with the consent of the parents. After all, in the business of adoption, bearing in mind developments in our knowledge of child care, it is the welfare of the child which is the paramount consideration. The task of the new legislation is to formulate this view in a more explicit way than was done in the 1974 Act and, if necessary, to have its constitutional validity tested either in a Supreme Court or, if it proves to be unconstitutional, by way of referendum.
With the growing acceptance and reality that larger numbers of women who are not married and who have children decide to keep them, the children who may need adoption are children whose parents are married and who are therefore legitimate but whose parents are often unwilling to take the necessary steps to ensure that the child's future is secure in so far as it can be. We should look closely at the business of dispensing with the consent of parents in certain special circumstances and the formulation which I have outlined from the supplementary report of the Task Force is a worthy one which we could consider putting into legislation.
If we see adoption as part of a child-care system, we should do away with the Adoption Board. We should make important legal decisions in the context of the proposed new family or children's court systems which I hope will emerge in the context of the new Children's Bill. The submission to the Government outlines various options as to the form of court which would be most appropriate to making decisions about adoption. Given that it is part of a child-care system and given that we will build up expertise in the proposed new children's and family courts, I hope that the decision about adoption will be taken there and the need for a separate Adoption Board will no longer be relevant.
I have referred to the main proposals contained in this submission. We in the Labour Party put it before the Seanad because it seems a very sensible approach to the need for reform of the adoption law and administrative system. It has been prepared by highly responsible skilled people and it is the business of this House to listen to what these people are saying and to encourage the Government to make the necessary legislative changes in the context of the proposed new Children's Bill. We are not trying to make this a partisan issue between Government and Opposition.
We are all aware of the economic crises which the country faces. Where finances are scarce the business of Government is to identify things which can be done at virtually little cost. I am not saying the proposals contained in this submission are cost free — they are not — but relatively speaking they do not involve much expenditure. The business of Government in the present economic climate is to seek out and identify things which are good in themselves and do not cost a lot of money. For this reason, together with the reasons set down in the submission, I commend the motion.