Seanad Report: Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan said he hoped to bring forward legislative proposals to enable foster parents in a relatively inexpensive way to adopt children for whom they had cared and who had reached the age of 18 years.
. "I think this is an important reform we have to bring in because the number of children in long-term fostering arrangements is growing all the time."
The Minister was speaking in the second stage debate on the Child Care (Amendment) Bill, 2006, which provides that a foster parent or relative caring for a child for a continuous period of five years - the child having been placed with them by the Health Service Executive - may apply for a court order for increased autonomy in relation to the care of the child.
The Bill would render it unnecessary for such carers to get permission to seek medical or dental treatment for a child, or permission for a child to receive an immunisation or to go on a school tour.
Mr Lenihan said that 1998 legislation permitted the adoption of a child of a marriage in very limited circumstances.
It might be that this issue would have to be revisited in constitutional terms because he was not satisfied that there were adequate powers to deal with this particular matter. The legislation required an application to be made to the High Court for an adoption of a child in long-term foster care and this could cost as much as €150,000.
While the relevant health agency discharged the cost, the procedure remained a very expensive one. "There is one way under the present constitutional scheme we can look at it, and that is to allow a child who is over the age of 18 and who has been in a specified period of foster care to be adopted by simple declaration of the child and the foster parents. That can be done within the constitution, because, of course, the imprescriptible rights of a parent over a child disappear when the child reaches the age of majority."
The Minister said he hoped to be in a position at the committee stage debate on the Bill before the House to deal with matters related to the recommendations in the Report of the Ferns Inquiry.