Adoption body chief offers to help process Vietnamese cases

CAROL COULTER Legal Affairs Editor

THE CHAIRMAN of the Adoption Board, Geoffrey Shannon, has told the Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, that he is available to travel immediately to Vietnam to assist the Irish embassy there in processing 20 adoptions agreed between the Irish and Vietnamese authorities last summer.

These applications had been received in Vietnam before the expiry last May of the bilateral agreement between the two countries on adoption.

Progress on an interim agreement is awaiting consideration by the Minister of two reports on child protection and adoption in Vietnam. In the meantime adoptions from Vietnam will be considered on a case-by-case basis by the Adoption Board.

Mr Shannon also said in a statement yesterday that inter-country adoption “carries inherent risks wherever it is carried out” and that the Hague Convention on inter-country adoptions provides the best available framework for managing those risks. It will be ratified when the Adoption Bill goes through the Oireachtas.

Pending the resolution of issues contained in the two reports, which he said highlighted the need to ensure appropriate arrangements to safeguard any adoptions, the board had advised the Minister it was seeking the assistance of the Department of Foreign Affairs in processing these 20 applications...> read whole article <