No one condones adoption on demand, as in the recent case of the six-month-old twins who were apparently adopted by two separate couples, one in Wales and one in California, via an Internet adoption "broker". But legitimate, state-sanctioned inter-country adoption is a long and complex process, as Irish adopters know, and the challenge remains to speed the process without endangering adoptees' safety. The majority of unmarried mothers in Ireland keep their babies now - only two children were placed with couples outside the children's immediate families in 1999 - so adoption of children from countries where large numbers are institutionalised because of political and/or economic factors, is the only option for most Irish couples.
In 1999, 191 children were adopted from outside Ireland, compared with 147 in 1998 and 84 in 1997. The main "sender" countries include Romania, Russia, China, Thailand and Vietnam. People in the Republic who want to adopt undergo a rigorous vetting process, carried out by their local health board. They must complete an application; submit medical, financial and Garda references; attend a six- to eight-session education course; and undergo a home study, or series of comprehensive interviews with a social worker. After the health board submits its recommendation to the Adoption Board for final certification, the couple either receives or is denied a declaration of suitability and eligibility for adoption. The assessment process takes about a year.
However, with the number of prospective adopters rising and the health boards pushed to capacity, the waiting time for an assessment can range from four months to three years, depending on where the applicants live. According to the Department of Health, as of September 30th, 2000, 1,009 couples throughout the Republic were awaiting assessment. There are 35 full-time social workers to deal with these. In the Eastern Regional Health Authority's health boards (East Coast, South Western and Northern Area boards, comprising Dublin and parts of Kildare), as of September 30th last, 530 applications were awaiting assessment.
The assessment is just the beginning of bringing home a child. When couples receive their clearance from the Adoption Board, they must research availability of children in "sender" nations. This information shifts rapidly because countries often change their policies and regulations concerning adoption. Ireland requires that the adoption law of the sender country be recognised under Irish law. This is to minimise the possibility of couples getting involved with nations where unscrupulous practices such as baby-selling occur. Advertising adoption services in the press or on the Internet is illegal here.
Ireland has state-to-state agreements with China, Belarus, Thailand and the Philippines. Romania requires that non-Romanians must engage a licensed foundation in Romania to facilitate adoptions, and Russia recently changed its law so that adopters must use adoption agencies in their own countries. Waiting times vary from six months in Russia, to a year and a half in Thailand, and the cost of adoption also varies. It costs around £5,000 to £6,000 to adopt a child in China, out of which £3,000 is a contribution to the orphanage in which the child was housed.
But it is the assessment process this end that frustrates many adopters, especially second-timers. When Sean and Anne O'Malley (not their real names), applied for their second assessment in 1995, they thought that their case might be expedited, since they had already successfully parented their first adoptive child, a boy from Romania, then five. Not only did they wait a year for the assessment, but the process involved 40 hours of interviews and parenting seminars over a 12-month period, most of which they regarded as being "of very little benefit".
Why, they wondered, did friends outside Dublin complete their assessments in only 20 hours? And why was there absolutely no follow-up when they brought home their daughter from Romania in 1997? "I fully subscribe to the principle behind the vetting process," says Sean. "But it seems there is a waste of time and resources." Now contemplating a third adoption, the couple again faces a minimum of two and a half years' queuing and assessment time.
Meanwhile, another Dublin woman, who waited two and a half years to begin her second assessment, speaks for several adopters when she describes an atmosphere of mistrust that permeates some relationships between adopters and their health board. She declines to discuss her ongoing experience: "At the moment we just don't want to rock the boat."
Persistent delays and mistrust had become so pronounced in the Irish adoption system during the mid-1990s, that the State commissioned an overall review in 1998. Prepared by UCD's Department of Social Policy and entitled "Towards a Standardised Framework for Intercountry Adoption Assessment Procedures", the study, published in 1999, was highly critical of the system, and offered extensive recommendations for its improvement.
Have they been implemented? Yes and no. According to the latest Department of Health statistics, those beginning the assessment process are now, for the first time, seeing a drop in the overall waiting list. In the Eastern Regional Health Authority, where the problem is most acute, the waiting time fell from up to 42 months as of June 2000, to up to 36 months as of September 2000. In comparison, waiting times in the south, west and northeast of the Republic are up to 16 months, up to six months, and up to 12 months respectively. And all assessments should now take no longer than 11 months, according to a Department of Health spokeswoman.
Staff shortages in the health boards have been addressed by the State's allocation of £1 million over the past two years. An additional £200,000 has been allocated recently but efforts to recruit, especially in Dublin, have fallen abysmally short of target. The spokeswoman attributes this to an inadequate number of places for social work students at colleges coupled with negative media publicity which discourages recruits. A new "fast-tracking" system for second-time adopters allows them to be assessed at a rate of four to one; i.e. for every eight first-timers served, two second-timers are accommodated.
The problems within the ERHA area continue to trouble adoption advocates. Between January 1st and September 30th, 2000, during which 280 new applications were received, just 55 assessments were completed. That was a drop in output from the same period in the previous year. (The UCD report recommends an output of 20 assessments per social worker per year; the current ERHA rate is about 5.5 per person per year.) The Southern region completed more assessments than the ERHA. And while the SHB and ERHA have the same complement of 13 social workers, the SHB has 130 applications in its backlog, compared with the ERHA's 500-plus applications. "Why out of all the health boards have the ERHA been unable to make an impression on the backlog?" asks Cathal Guimoard, chairman of the International Adoption Association.
According to a spokesman from the South Western Area Health Board, which manages inter-country adoption services on behalf of the three area health boards in the Eastern region: "The boards are actively recruiting social workers. It is a challenge for the health boards to get as many staff as possible in place as quickly as possible and we are examining all options in this regard." Adoption procedures vary around the EU. New laws in the UK aim to reduce the waiting time for domestic adoption from three years to 12 months. In Italy, the system is fairly similar to Ireland's, with around 12 months alloted for assessment, 12 to 18 months for the declaration to be issued, and a further eight to 12 to complete the procedure abroad. Italy also requires a one-year "test period," in which the new family is assessed by its original social worker.
In the Netherlands, because of waiting lists, the entire process, from assessment to bringing home a child, takes on average four to five years. In Belgium, on the other hand, the assessment takes only a few months and there are virtually no queues.
Not all Irish adopters are dissatisfied with the process here. "All the obstacles that people talk about - none of it happened. I think there are a lot of `perceived problems' out there," says Anne Greene, of Dublin, who recently adopted her second child from Vietnam. And Richard Barrett and Syndna Farrar, who are midway through their first assessment in hopes of adopting a child from China, find the process very valid. The two year duration of the assessment "gives us time to explore our own motives", says Barrett. "If you want to do it, you hang in. The worst thing to do would be to rush."
The Adoption Board, Dublin. Tel: 01-6671392; e-mail: info@adoptionboard.ie
International Adoption Association, P.O. Box 5522, Shankill, Co Dublin (send stamped addressed envelope). Web address: www.iaaireland.com
