RUSSIA IS THE most popular country from which Irish people adopt children, but this is set to change.

The Adoption Act 2010 ratified the Hague Convention in Ireland, meaning Irish people can now only adopt from counties who have also signed up to the Convention.

The Act allowed for a transitional period where adoptions already underway were allowed to be completed.

As such, 320 inter-country adoptions have been registered with the Adoption Authority of Ireland since the Act was introduced in November 2010: 201 children have been adopted from Russia; 110 from Ethiopia; eight from Taiwan and one from Ukraine.

Since 2010, the following adoptions from Hague-compliant states have been registered:

• 36 from the United States;
• 23 from India;
• 14 from Thailand;
• 13 from Mexico;
• 11 from China;
• 2 from England.

During the same time period one child has been adopted from each of the following countries: Colombia; El Salvador; Philippines; Romania; South Africa and Vietnam.

The figures were revealed in the Dáil recently by Children’s Minister James Reilly, in response to parliamentary questions asked by Independent TD Clare Daly.

Earlier this year, the Children’s Rights Alliance said that Ireland must only allow inter-country adoptions to take place between Hague-compliant countries because states operating outside of the agreement could be perceived as “corrupt”.

In June Maria Corbett from the Alliance told the Oireachtas Children’s Committee that such countries “can be involved in child trafficking and even deception of parents for profit”.

At the same committee hearing, Kiernan Gildea from the Adoption Authority of Ireland said there are at least 14 times more couples wanting to adopt children than there are children available in Ireland.

There are 14 times more Irish people looking to adopt than there are children available

Stop people aged over 42 adopting from another country? That’s discriminatory