Russian adoption agreement sought

AN IRISH delegation will arrive in Moscow this morning to begin negotiations on a bilateral agreement with Russia to resume adoptions from the country.

The delegation is headed by Adoption Authority chairman Geoffrey Shannon, who is being accompanied by two senior officials from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

The negotiations will be Ireland’s first efforts at securing a bilateral agreement with a country in respect of inter-country adoption under the Adoption Act 2010.

Under the act, which came into force last November, Irish people can only adopt from countries that have ratified the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption or with which Ireland has a bilateral agreement. Russia has, to date, failed to ratify the Hague Convention.

It is understood that a bilateral agreement with Russia will only be entered into if Russia is in compliance with Hague standards in terms of international best practice regarding adoption.

Russia stopped processing all Irish adoption requests in April 2009 due to delays by authorities here in returning the required documentation.

At the time of the suspension, Russia was the second most popular country from which Irish parents adopted, after Vietnam.

According to figures released by the Adoption Authority, a total of 1,229 Russian children were adopted by Irish people between 1991 and 2008.