DEPARTMENT OF Health officials met Russian embassy representatives yesterday in an effort to have the HSE removed from an adoption “blacklist” issued by Russia’s minister for education.
Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews said that the Russian authorities had “put their foot down” about the non-submission of “a small number” of post-placement reports on children adopted by Irish parents and the Government was responding, hoping to have Ireland removed from the blacklist “as soon as possible”.
He also stressed that work had been going on for 14 months in relation to a bilateral agreement with the Vietnamese authorities on adoptions. Further proposals will be sent to the Vietnamese authorities next week.
Mr Andrews defended the HSE and said that a minority of reports had not been submitted. “They are with parents.” He added that it was not the fault of the HSE in most cases and it was in fact inappropriate to use the word “fault”.
“I think it is simply a practice that has developed and the Russian authorities have put their foot down in relation to this and we need to respond accordingly.”
The Minister was responding to Opposition criticism that applications by Irish couples seeking to adopt from Russia and Vietnam had “stopped dead” because of failures by the Irish authorities.
Four TDs raised the issue in the Dáil, claiming that the State had failed to respond quickly enough and at a sufficiently high level to the Vietnamese authorities over a bilateral adoption treaty that lapsed on May 1st.
They also claimed that prospective adopting Irish parents could not complete adoptions from the Russian Federation because the HSE was failing to respond to its demand that reports be submitted for Russian children who have already been placed or adopted in Ireland.
Fine Gael spokesman on children Alan Shatter (Dublin South) claimed it was only seven weeks before the agreement with Vietnam expired that the Minister’s office forwarded a new draft bilateral agreement to the Vietnamese authorities, which he said was an “international treaty”.
Michael D Higgins (Labour, Galway West) said it was “absolutely urgent that a Minister visit Vietnam and the conclusion of the new agreement be achieved at a level that is acceptable to both sides of the protocol”, and the same issue arose with Russia.
Joe Costello (Labour, Dublin Central) said the adoption process for more than 1,500 couples had “stopped dead”. He pointed out that “France had no difficulty negotiating a new bilateral adoption agreement with Vietnam. Why should Ireland be different?”
Ciarán Cuffe (Green, Dún Laoghaire) expressed concern about the HSE’s role and said the Health Service Executive “should be pulling out all the stops to make this happen so that children are protected. I do not think it is focusing closely enough on the issue at present, however.”
Mr Andrews said work on the agreement with Vietnam was going on for 14 months and there had been three visits there, including one in April.
He stressed that in view of the pending Adoption Bill 2009, as well as serious concerns raised “regarding adoption in Vietnam by other jurisdictions at that time”, the Government “decided it could not simply ‘roll over’ the current agreement but would have to negotiate a new, strengthened agreement”.
