In his weekly column in The Irish Times Vincent Browne complains that the proposed children’s rights amendment (CRA) doesn’t go far enough. For example, he maintains that even if passed it will still be too difficult to adopt children in foster care because it will still give too many rights to the natural parents.

He mentions various Supreme Court decisions in which the  court ruled that children who had been in foster care for some time should nonetheless be returned to their natural parents.

These rulings were made even though the court received expert evidence that the children had bonded with their new parents and that they would suffer psychological damage if restored to their natural parents.

Browne mentions one case where a child was with would-be adoptive parents for 17 months and was nevertheless handed back to his/her biological parents when the biological parents applied to court.

But let’s forget about the Constitution here and consider this from a purely natural justice point of view.

Imagine a scenario in which a child is born to parents who are shortly thereafter involved in a terrible car crash which renders them incapable of looking after their children for more than one year.

During that year (or more) the child is cared for by foster parents and develops a bond with them.

The natural parents then recover. Should the fact that a bond has developed between the child and the foster parents mean that the natural parents must surrender their right to raise their child and give the child to the foster couple instead?

Would that be fair and proportionate? Would the psychological damage done to the child of being removed from parents which whom he or she had formed a bond be so overwhelming that the child must then remain with the foster parents forever?

A more likely scenario is that the parents (or parent) are drug addicts. They might take two years to recover during which time their children are removed from them. In that time is the right of the parents to raise their own children rendered null and void forever?

In fact, many children go back and forth between their natural parents and foster parents and this will continue to happen no matter what kind of law we have.

In the world of Vincent Browne once a certain period of time passes (how long, one year?) and a child has developed a bond with new parents, that is that. The natural parents then lose their rights to raise their child forever.

I can’t think of anywhere in the world where this in fact happens. Indeed, under the proposed new adoption law published by the Government, 36 months will have to pass before a child taken into care can be placed for adoption by the State. Presumably this is far too long for Vincent.