Last week Charlie McConalogue of Fianna Fail
tabled a Private Member’s Bill to allow the adoption of the children of 
married
couples. He was supported in this by party colleague, John Browne [1]. Browne said
it a good thing overall that so few Irish children are available for adoption.
To put it mildly, this is arguable.
Having noted how few Irish children are available for adoption,
Browne said this was a good thing because “Irish
parents are now caring for their children rather than placing them for
adoption”, the “stigma attached to unwanted pregnancies” is a thing of the past,
and even though there are still many crisis pregnancies, few of the resultant
babies “end up being placed for adoption.”
He’s
right, few of them are placed for adoption because many of them are aborted
instead. It is extremely hard to see how this is progress and Browne should have
taken note of the fact.
That
is the most obvious point to make in response. But another point is this; very
few children are adopted in Ireland because it is extremely hard to adopt the
children of ANY parents, whatever their marital status.
In
other words, the real focus of Fianna Fail’s attention shouldn’t be the
difficulty in adopting the children of married parents (although this is worthy
of some attention), it should instead be the difficulty in adopting Irish
children, period.
According
to the 2008 report [2]
from the Adoption Authority of Ireland, 200 domestic adoption orders were made
in that year. Of these 200 minors, 133 were adopted by family members, for
example, the husband of the mother or a grandparent.
Only
67 adoption orders to non-family members were made. Foster parents fall into
this category and a mere 16 minors were adopted by foster parents in
2008.
Given
that there are now more than 6,000 children in care, overwhelmingly in foster
care, it is clear that the difficulty lies not so much in removing children from
their families. Rather it lies in persuading the Health Boards to make more of
those children available for adoption, whatever the marital status of their
parents.
This
should have been the main focus of Browne’s speech. He should have queried this
reluctance on the part of the Health Boards to place children for adoption.
Undoubtedly many of the 6,000 plus children in care should not be placed for
adoption. But equally, far many more than 67 (the 2008 figure) should be
available for non-family adoption.
Undoubtedly
too many children were adopted in the past. But today, too many are aborted and
too few are placed for adoption. That is not progress and it needs to be
remedied.