Labour Senator Kathleen O'Meara has called on the Government to organise independent legal representation for Tristan Dowse, the young boy abandoned by his adoptive parents in an Indonesian orphanage.
As Department of Foreign Affairs and Irish Adoption Board officials prepare to fly to Jakarta tomorrow, Senator O'Meara said that since his father is Irish and the adoption is registered with the Irish Adoption Board, Tristan "is an Irish citizen and an Irish passport holder who finds himself in difficulties abroad". As such he is "entitled to the protection of the State".
A spokesman for the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said yesterday that the deputy legal executive of the department was among those travelling tomorrow. "What we have been looking at all the time is the child's best interests and the fact that we are sending a legal official shows this."
He said the department had hired local legal representation in Jakarta in the past over the case, and he would not rule out this happening again.
Noel Treacy, Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, told the Dáil last week that Tristan was "an Indonesian and an Irish citizen" living in an orphanage in Indonesia.
The Adoption Board does not consider as sufficient the attempts by the Dowses to have the boy's adoption annulled in Indonesia so that he could be readopted. Mr Treacy also said that Tristan's entry in the Registry of Foreign Adoptions could only be cancelled by High Court order.
Ms O'Meara said yesterday that the boy had not been well served by his adoptive parents or the institutions of the State in Ireland or Indonesia. She accepted that there was no simple solution to the situation in which the boy now found himself.
"The underlying principle that must inform any decisions about his future is that the interests of the child himself must be paramount.
"In that regard it is essential, in my view, that the child should have independent legal representation to ensure that his interests are upheld in any discussions or negotiations about his future and also in any legal action that may arise here or in Indonesia in regard to his status. Indeed, there is a compelling view that, under a number of international conventions, Tristan is entitled to such independent legal representation."