I thank you, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter relating to adoption. I think the Minister and myself will agree on one matter, that in the context of adoption the welfare of the child is of paramount consideration. It is also important that couples who seek to adopt children are treated properly according to the law and that unfair discriminations are not operated within adoption procedures, officially or unofficially. Guidelines that were updated by the Adoption Board on 7 October this year expressly lay down what I describe as an age discrimination in the area of adoption, and it has been interpreted as such by the Minister in reply to a Dáil question tabled by me.
I will put the matter as simply and succinctly as I can. Under our adoption laws if a couple wish to adopt, an adoption society or a health board is asked to determine their suitability to do so. A suitability assessment is carried out and if they are suitable and a child is available the child may be placed with them for adoption. The statutory provisions lay down no upper age limit for adoption. Of course common sense must apply and if people are elderly or very unwell, obviously it is not appropriate that children be placed with them.
It is clear from the guidelines now in circulation that if one party to a marriage is over the age of 40, for example, if the wife is 35 and the husband is 41, the adoption agency is to take the view that there must be special factors or circumstances which merit placing a child with such a couple. The Minister used the words "special factors" in his reply to the Dáil question which I tabled. In the guidelines I have been furnished with there is reference to the agencies giving the reasons for recommending the particular couple, but it is not phrased in the usual way when dealing with adoption. The implication is that there must be a special reason for placing a child for adoption with a couple where one of the parties is over 40 and that such special reasons are not necessary in other circumstances.
Any couple who is fortunate enough to be able to have children of their own, naturally born to them, may do so whether they are 35, 36, 40 or 41. No special factors are necessary in those circumstances. It is a totally arbitrary, unjustified and unlawful discrimination to set in motion a procedure, with the approval of the Adoption Board, whereby couples are effectively put outside the net in the context of applying for adoption. Couples are disentitled to adopt simply by virtue of an arbitrary age discrimination, and this is a creeping ideology in our adoption process. I say this as someone who has the highest regard for the Adoption Board and our adoption agencies. The Adoption Board, in implementing the Adoption Act, 1991, has done an enormous amount of work, but everybody is not right all the time about everything.
This is a matter of real concern as these guidelines are being interpreted by health boards and adoption agencies as meaning that only in exceptional circumstances should adoption be allowed where the husband or wife is over 40 years. This results in many couples seeking to adopt, either in Ireland or abroad, being told they do not qualify, they are not suitable purely on age grounds. This is happening in practice and I want the Minister to be aware of it. The Minister should ask the Adoption Board to withdraw these guidelines in so far as they provide for an age discrimination. The board should be required to set out quite clearly that their job in giving guidelines to agencies is simply to ensure that agencies assess people's suitability. The next step may be that before married couples, where the husband is 41 or 42 and the wife is 35 or 36, are allowed conceive and have their own children they will be assessed by social workers to find out whether there are special factors which merit their being allowed to have children. If that is an absurd or bizarre suggestion, it is equally so to lay down a special rule to apply to couples where the wife is 35 or 36 and the husband 40 or 41, to the effect that only where special factors exist may they adopt.
This is an issue that affects many hundreds of couples throughout the country. Since these guidelines were introduced, in some agencies couples who understood that decisions were about to be made as to their suitability have been told by their social workers that because of the new guidelines there may be a problem regarding their suitability. We should not fall foul of the tyranny of some of the ideology that has infiltrated adoption practices in other countries. We should apply a degree of common sense in our adoption procedures. We should protect the welfare of children and we should not apply to adoptive couples arbitrary, unfair discriminations that do not apply to couples who are fortunate enough to have their own children without having to go through the adoption process.
