A damning study of inter-country adoption, Irish style
Tuesday June 19 2007
THE Trinity College report into inter-country adoptions is very glossy.
Pictures of beautiful smiling children beam out from the pages of the executive summary, and the text and accompanying press release match the happy images.
The launch of the report yesterday attracted a huge crowd. In the end so many people, mostly adoptive parents and their children, turned up that for safety reasons it had to be moved to a larger venue.
From the smiling faces of the crowd it was obvious that most had not read the full report. But bizarrely from the summary and press release given to the crowd it seems that many of the academics behind the study had not themselves got the full picture when they distilled the report for public consumption.
The press release told how most of the children had made an "extraordinary recovery" since they were adopted. However, buried deep in the executive summary and main report is the admission that the researchers know almost nothing about the children pre-adoption and what little they do know "has a huge question mark over its reliability".
But mostly the executive summary paints a resoundingly positive picture of inter-country adoption into Ireland. The summary mentions that social workers share the concerns of adoptive parents that the assessment process is too long. But the summary ignores the evidence collected by researchers, which amounts to one of the most damning examinations of inter-country adoption Irish style.
But you have to dig deep into the report to learn what is rotten at the heart of the practice.
The report said a key finding was that Irish inter-country adoption does not meet the best interests of the child.
The stunning conclusion is that Irish law and public policy is walking over the rights of some of the most vulnerable children on the planet. The report recorded that interviews with senior social workers suggested that totally unsuitable but politically influential people are being allowed to adopt.
According to the social workers, after the lengthy assessment process most negative assessments are overturned by the adoption board and what they claim to be unsuitable people are allowed to become parents to and have complete access to some of the most vulnerable children in the world.
The social workers have no doubt why their rejections were overturned by the Adoption Board.
Unsuitable but
influential people are being allowed
to adopt
Those who want to adopt are in general "a vocal and politically influential group in Irish society," they told the Trinity researchers.
Because of what the social workers describe as political manoeuvring in the adoption process and because of the lower standards in the international adoption process the study found that current inter-country adoption practice in Ireland does not operate "in the best interests of the child".
Among the reasons for this finding was lack of reliable paperwork and lack of proof that the birth mother genuinely gave the child up for adoption. In other words, adoption professionals in Ireland cannot stand over adoptions they are processing as being legal.
Every few months there seems to be another scandal concerning international adoption into Ireland. Romania closed adoptions because of concern over corruption at its end. The case of Tristan Dowse showed that paperwork was routinely forged in Indonesia and last year My Linh Soland, the Vietnamese facilitator for Irish adoptions, was revealed to be a convicted fraudster who admitted forging paperwork for Irish adoptions.
Now it seems there are no effective checks or balances on the Irish side.
In the bad old days of Irish adoption, all you needed to adopt was to know the priest or a powerful local politician and of course be willing to make a contribution to the religious order organising the adoption.
We thought we had advanced from those days but yesterday's report suggests that there is a sizable body of professional opinion that feels that connections and wealth still count.
Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer have made several documentaries about inter-country adoption including 'The Search for Tristan's Mum' for RTE which investigated the adoption in Indonesia of Tristan Dowse.
- Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer
