2,000 children up for adoption Changes in the law will allow children in long-term care to become a permanent part of their foster families in the new year

UP TO 2,000 children will be eligible for adoption in Ireland next year following a radical overhaul of legislation involving children in care, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The children, who are in long-term care, will now have the option of staying with their foster families permanently.

There are currently around 6,200 children in care, 2,000 of whom have been living with foster families for more than five years.

Previously, only a handful were eligible for adoption because the current law states that a child has to be abandoned for 12 months and that the abandonment was expected to continue until the child reached 18 years before it could be adopted.

The State also needs to prove that the biological parents have abandoned all of their parental and constitutional rights – a virtually impossible task.

This results in the child being adopted at the age of 17, which experts believe is of no benefit to certain children.

The Adoption Authority of Ireland is now preparing for a large number of children being placed for adoption in the New Year.

On Thursday, Children’s Minister James Reilly will address a conference at the AAI headquarters regarding the need for permanency for children who are available for adoption.

A source said: ‘We will be supporting any children who are placed for adoption as a result of long-term foster care. It means they can stay with the only families they have ever known as long as they are happy and that’s what they want. It will give them the option.’

The number of children adopted annually has risen significantly over the past few years.

In 2013, there were a total of 116 adoptions. Of those, 88 involved a step-parent adopting the child of their partner, the biological parent.

Foster care campaigner Wayne Dignam, 39, who recently established the group Irish Care Leavers Network, welcomed the new legislation.

‘If that’s what children in care want and they are ready for it and there’s a good integration within the family they are in, I would support adoption for them,’ he said.

‘I was never adopted. I was in long- term foster care but the option could have been made available to me. My biological parents weren’t married – it’s harder for the ones whose biological parents are married.

‘It makes it more difficult for a child to prove abandonment if their biological parents have maintained even minimal contact – but you could have an open adoption where you can have contacts with your birth parents.

‘Sometimes it’s necessary that kids remain in long-term foster care. There should be an increase in adoption for kids in long-term foster care,’ Mr Dignam added.

‘I don’t see why not. They should be encouraged where there is no hope of the child ever going back to their birth family. If the child wants to be integrated into the [foster] family, it can be a very positive thing for the child if they are.

‘If it doesn’t happen it just leaves uncertainty for the child not knowing how long they will be there.’

There are around 15,000 care leavers in Ireland and Mr Dignam, who will be the keynote speaker at the conference on Thursday, said the fostercare system needed a radical overhaul and that Tusla, the child and family agency, was not fit for purpose.

‘The latest report from HIQA has told a story that has been told over and over again. The same failures are being repeated and the introduction of new legal policies and procedures, protection and welfare guidelines and the regulation and checks and balances are not being adhered to.

‘As care leavers, we are concerned that we are developing a legacy as bad as the legacy left by the industrial schools, with far-reaching consequences for all those responsible.

‘I was in short-term care from age three, in and out of residential care with my whole family, and then I was in long-term care from the age of 10 right up to graduating from care.

‘My foster mum passed away a few years ago. I don’t see as much of my foster dad because he is in Dublin and I’m in Limerick.

‘In June, I set up the Irish Care Leavers Network and we’ve been very active. We have over 200 members.

‘We had a survey recently with over 100 care leavers responding to it and we asked them about adoption and if the option was not there for you, would you like to have been adopted.

‘We asked, “Do you feel people made a decision for you without your consent?”

‘As care leavers, it’s the first time we will be speaking about it. We are coming for the system and we know what’s needed’.

During the Children’s Referendum campaign, AAI chairman Geoffrey Shannon said: ‘The adoption of children in long-term foster care offers some children a second chance to enjoy the stability of a caring and loving family.

‘It is imperative that this is done at an early stage so that children can benefit from the permanency that adoption offers…

‘The children need a second chance. Adoption should be made available for some children, not all children, but the option should be there.

‘There is a need for permanence within a family structure. These are children that need a voice and need to be allowed to have a second chance.

‘Foster parents are ordinary people doing extraordinary work on behalf of the State.’

Speaking to the MoS in 2013, the then children’s minister, Frances Fitzgerald, said the Children’s Referendum would for the first time prioritise the needs of children.

She said: ‘The referendum has been called for by a whole range of experts and governments over the past 10 years. It’s the right thing to do.’

She explained that new articles would be inserted, not just minor amendments.

‘The position of the family in Article 41 will not be touched; instead we are putting in a new series of articles that will deal specifically with children. Until now, children’s rights have been ignored in the Constitution. This will put the best interests of the child first.’