Press release from The Iona
Institute
Referendum
will make very little difference to number of adoptions
Claim that
amending the Constitution will allow many more children to be adopted is
false
THE
CLAIM that the children’s rights referendum if passed “will allow the up to
2,000 children trapped in long term state care to be adopted and given a second
chance at having a loving permanent family” is without foundation.
The
claim is made because the Constitution prevents married couples voluntarily
placing their children for adoption.
In
fact, if passed, the amendment will make very little difference to the vast
majority of children in either long-term or short-term foster care.
Speaking on
behalf of The Iona Institute, Professor Patricia Casey said: “Official figures
show that only a tiny number of adoptions take place each year regardless of the
marital status of the families the children in care come from. Therefore blaming
the Constitution for the present logjam is a red herring”.
She
continued: “The chief impediment is legislative and the second appears to be
cultural, namely that very few parents, no matter how troubled their
circumstances, appear to want to place their children for adoption anymore. We
also need to investigate how actively our social services encourage
adoption.”
She
concluded: “It will be a great disservice to children in long-term foster care
if we think we have solved the problem by passing this amendment. In fact we
will have solved only a tiny portion of the problem”.
As at
December 31, 2011 there were 5,564 in foster care with 2,023 in long-term foster
care, meaning five or more years, and figures provided by the Department of
Children and Youth Affairs show that two-thirds of those in foster care, both
long-term and shorter-term are from unmarried families not
married families.
Children from
unmarried families should in theory be much easier to adopt than those from
married families but the reality is that very few children are adopted in
Ireland regardless of what kind of family they come from, married or
unmarried.
Official
figures show that only 16 orders for non-family adoptions were made in 2011
regarding children in long-term foster-care, and only 16 the year before. (See
note 2 below)
Therefore, the
chief impediment to adoption is not the Constitution but other
factors.
One
is the Adoption Act. Section 54 of this Act stipulates that a child must be in
care for at least 12 months and that there is no real likelihood of the
child being returned to his or her parents before the child reaches the age of
18, before an adoption order can be granted.
Arguably this
is the single biggest impediment to adoption in this country, and this section
is being changed by the Adoption (Amendment) Bill 2012. This change does not
require an amendment to the Constitution.
However, there
also appears to be cultural and societal resistance to adoption. Very few
children are placed voluntarily for adoption anymore, and the Department of
Children and Youth Affairs should investigate how commonly adoption is
encouraged by HSE staff who work with troubled families.
It is
the belief of The Iona Institute that the amendment to the Adoption Act, and the
active encouragement of adoption in the right circumstances would do far more to
release children from long-term foster care than any change to the
Constitution.
Exaggerated
claims about the supposedly harmful effects of the Constitution vis a vis
adoption are not helpful and they hinder rather than help the public
understanding of what will make adoption a more common practice in Irish life
again.
ENDS
Notes to
Editors
- The Iona Institute is
a pro-marriage, pro-religion think tank. - In 2010, 154
adoptions also took place within the child’s family and 151 of these were by the
natural mother’s husband.