{"id":912,"date":"2009-11-27T18:32:47","date_gmt":"2009-11-27T18:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.againstchildtrafficking.org\/?p=912"},"modified":"2010-08-20T18:34:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T18:34:00","slug":"ahern-warns-of-anti-adoption-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/ahern-warns-of-anti-adoption-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahern warns of ‘anti-adoption bias’"},"content":{"rendered":"
Source: irishtimes.com<\/a><\/div>\n

The Irish Times – Friday, November 27, 2009
\nMARIE O’HALLORAN<\/p>\n

A FORMER minister has suggested there may be an \u201canti-adoption bias\u201d at senior levels of the Department of Health and of the Health Service Executive.<\/p>\n

Noel Ahern (FF, Dublin North West) questioned why people were obliged to wait five years to adopt when \u201cit only takes nine months to have a baby\u201d.<\/p>\n

And he challenged why Ireland had let the bilateral agreement with Vietnam go into abeyance.<\/p>\n

Mr Ahern said Minister of State Barry Andrews had referred to reports critical of Vietnam\u2019s procedures. \u201cBut it is extraordinary that other countries, and I do not mean banana republic countries but countries such as France, Denmark, Canada and Italy, do not seem to have difficulties with the bilateral arrangements with Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wondered \u201cwhether we are being a bit too careful\u201d. He was speaking during the ongoing D\u00e1il debate on the Adoption Bill, which brings the Hague Convention on the protection of children and co-operation in respect of inter-country adoption into statute law.<\/p>\n

Mr Ahern said during the debate that \u201coften over the years I felt there was an attitude at a high level in the department or the HSE long before the Minister of State or his officials were there, which was not exactly friendly to the adoption process\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people see adoption as something that happened decades ago. Perhaps concerns were raised in a few cases, but there were also thousands of children being placed in loving homes here and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not sure whether there is an anti-adoption bias somewhere at the high levels of the Department of Health or in the HSE.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echoing the comments of many speakers in the debate, Mr Ahern said there was \u201cgreat unhappiness relating to the HSE\u2019s adoption process\u201d. He sharply criticised social workers \u201cwho drag out the work and create extra interviews and layers of bureaucracy to slow down the end product\u201d.<\/p>\n

The former minister of state said the Bill wants expeditious processing of adoption but includes the phrase \u201cas soon as practicable\u201d.<\/p>\n

This meant \u201cwe are picking the bits that are best practice to suit ourselves and where the HSE is making a mess of the assessments, we are watering down best practice as stated in the Hague Convention because it suits inefficiency in the HSE\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was \u201cfine to introduce a document that outlines what will be best practice into the future. However, it is important that we assist those couples who have been involved with the process for a number of years to finalise their adoptions. It was a question of where to draw the line.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: irishtimes.com The Irish Times – Friday, November 27, 2009 MARIE O’HALLORAN A FORMER minister has suggested there may be an \u201canti-adoption bias\u201d at senior levels of the Department of Health and of the Health Service Executive. Noel Ahern (FF, Dublin North West) questioned why people were obliged to wait five years to adopt when… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":914,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions\/914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}