Ogra Fianna Fail has come out in support of adoption by gay and lesbian couples in a new policy document called ‘Equality for same-sex couples and their 
families’.
The document praises the Government’s Civil Partnership Bill but notes that no allowance is made in the Bill for adoption. It “calls on the Minister for Health and Children to introduce legislation to allow registered same-sex couples to be considered for adoption.”
It acknowledges that “no person or couple has an automatic right to adopt a child; but every child has to right to grow up in a family home, supported by parents, who are recognised as such by the State.”
The document does not consider whether children have a right to a mother and a father, or whether preference in adoption proceedings should be given to married heterosexual couples.
Ogra Fianna Fail also calls for the “extension of guardianship to civil partners” because this would provide “important protections for children being parented by same-sex couples enabling them to establish a legal relationship with their parents, and enabling civil partners to take on guardianship responsibilities.”
No mention is made in the document of the other biological parent of children raised by same-sex couples and what their legal relationship to that parent should be.
In a recent decision the Supreme Court recognised the right of a sperm-donor father to have a relationship with his child and vice versa.