Couples pay €45,000 to adopt child from abroad

Independent.ie

'Money is going into private pockets and that should not be happening'

By Eilish O'Regan
Tuesday June 19 2007

Private middlemen in Russia or Kazakhstan can charge as much as €20,000 for their services, adding to the high costs for prospective parents, already burdened with travel and legal fees.

John Collins, chief executive of the Adoption Authority, said yesterday that expensive agencies should be outlawed.

"Money is going into private pockets and that should not be happening," he said.

The cost of adoption varies from country to country and for most it is around €10,000, it emerged.

He was speaking at the launch of a major study on intercountry adoption, which highlighted serious gaps in services, including a lack of support for parents whose children are in need of specialist paediatric care when they return home.

Around 500 children from abroad are now being adopted here annually as the numbers available for domestic adoption have dwindled.

Just 50 children are put up for adoption here every year, forcing couples anxious to become parents to go to orphanages in far flung destinations including Russia, Romania, China, Vietnam and Belarus.

Mr Collins said a significant number of 5,000 children who are in foster care could be adopted but a constitutional amendment was needed to let this happen.

The study by the Children's Research Centre in Trinity College interviewed and assessed 180 children who had been adopted from 15 countries and their families, over two years, and found that the majority were doing well.

However, around 25pc to 30pc of the children had ongoing problems although they were severe in only a small number of cases.

The children were on average around 17 months when adopted and most had been cared for in institutions which ranged from "excellent to appalling". Sheila Greene, director of the Children's Research Centre, said nearly 40pc of the children had significant health problems when they arrived in Ireland.

The report highlighted the urgent need for a comprehensive service for children and parents once they came back, including access to specialist care to cope with developmental delays. This has now been deemed a priority by the Adoption Authority.

Early difficulties experienced by the children included problems with poor eye contact, not listening when being spoken to, being too friendly to strangers or clinginess. One quarter had ongoing problems with distractibility and sustaining attention.

While the children, for the most part, reported positive experiences in the wider Irish community, there was a "worrying number of reported incidents of racist or prejudicial remarks and attitudes".

It was also confirmed yesterday that delays in assessment of couples meant they could be waiting up to five years from the time they first apply for adoption to the point when they finally take home their child.

Waiting lists

Mr Collins said a shortage of social workers was leading to the delays and further efforts were under way to cut the waiting lists.

He said a State mediation agency was now in place for Irish couples adopting in Vietnam, charging a standard fee.

It was hoped to extend this service to other countries in time.

Legislation is also now in the final stages of preparation to ratify the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption which will improve regulation of the whole area.

- Eilish O'Regan