Adoption Act, 1998

Amendment of section 1 (definitions) of Act of 1991.

10.—Section 1 of the Act of 1991 is hereby amended—

(a) in the definition of “foreign adoption”—

(i) by the substitution of the following for paragraph (a):

“(a) the consent to the adoption of every person whose consent to the adoption was, under the law of the place where the adoption was effected, required to be obtained or dispensed with was obtained or dispensed with under that law either—

(i) at the time the adoption was effected, or

(ii) at a subsequent time when, if the adoption which was initially granted did not have the effect in that place of terminating a pre-existing legal parent-child relationship, it was converted into an adoption having that effect by virtue of such consent being obtained or dispensed with under that law (the date on which the adoption was initially granted being construed for the purposes of this Act as the time the adoption was effected),”,

(ii) by the substitution of the following for paragraph (b):

“(b) the adoption has, for so long as it is in force, substantially the same legal effect as respects the guardianship of the child in the place where it was effected as an adoption effected by an adoption order,”,

and

(iii) by the substitution of the following for paragraph (d):

“(d) the adoption was effected for the purpose of promoting the interests and welfare of the child,”,

and

(b) by the substitution of the following for the definition of “place”:

“‘place’ means a country (other than the State) or any of the following jurisdictions, that is to say, England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands or, in relation to a country that has in matters of adoption two or more systems of law applying in different territorial units, any of the territorial units;”.