Adoption agency approved in principle
CAROL COULTER Legal Affairs Editor
THE ADOPTION Board has approved in principle the setting up of a mediation agency to facilitate intercountry adoptions. It is being set up in anticipation of Ireland ratifying the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions, due in the Dáil this session, which requires such agencies.
Up to now, the only Irish mediation agency was the Cork-based Helping Hands Adoption Agency, which facilitated adoptions from Vietnam. Its mediation licence was revoked by the Vietnamese government in June, following the lapsing of a bilateral agreement on adoption between the countries.
Helping Hands received €1.6 million in HSE and lottery funding from its setting up in 2006, and employs four staff in Ireland and four in Vietnam. The new mediation agency, provisionally called Leanbh, is being set up by a number of leading members of the International Adoption Association. Its constitution and means of operating are set within the framework of the Hague Convention. Following its ratification, only other countries that have ratified it may send children to Ireland for intercountry adoption.