Ivana Bacik

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: I support what Senator Fitzgerald said about an adoption matter. One Bill on which the Seanad has had a particularly good and robust debate in recent weeks has been the Adoption Bill. A number of us have been very active in tabling amendments. The Minister of State has considered them seriously. I really appreciate his consideration of many of the important amendments tabled by those of us on this side of the House. While what the Minister of State told The Irish Times in today’s interview with Carol Coulter goes beyond what he was certainly hinting to us in last week’s debate, he was certainly hinting to us there were difficulties with Vietnam in particular, and that was the real reason for the delay. However, he did not state the difficulties. Many of us were sensitive to the fact that he might not have wanted to do so. However, given that he has stated the difficulties in public in any event, it is a pity we could not have debated them in this House last week. Irrespective of whether the issues concern the origin of the children, whether their parents have really given them up for adoption or whether they have done so under duress, they are very serious.

We all want to see adoption law that has the best interest of the child at its heart, regardless of the child’s origin. We are all very mindful of our own history, in which dreadful things were done to children by way of adoption and adoptions carried out without proper consent. I would welcome the Minister of State’s coming to the House to debate this further.

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