500 parents in legal action to win back 'stolen' children taken into care

By Martyn Halle 10/10/2010

'From Russia with Love' drama as new stolen Irish passport turns up

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Richard and Cynthia Murphy, Russian spies, used Irish passports

A real life ‘From Russia with Love’ story has developed around another Irish passport stolen by Russian spies for use in the U.S.

The Irish charity To Russia with Love,which oversees adoptions to Ireland from Russia, has revealed that one of their members had their passport stolen and later used by the Russian spy ring in the U.S. that was recently cracked by the FBI. The passport details were stolen when the worker for the Irish adoption charity was in Moscow.

A counterfeit passport, using the Irish woman’s name, was later uused in the US by one of the Russian Federal Security Bureau, the new name for the KGB  spies.

Irish police have also discovered that the Russian spies hacked into the charity's computers to get details on staff members, according to the Sunday Independent.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs told the paper it  "does not comment on individual cases," adding: "The gardai and the Passport Office have undertaken an investigation into the alleged use of a fraudulent Irish passport. This investigation is under way and we do not wish to speculate on its findings."

The suspicion is that the To Russia With Love passport was used by a ‘Cynthia Murphy’ who lived with her husband ‘Richard' in Montclair, New Jersey as an Irish American' couple.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/From-Russia-with-Love-drama-as-new-stolen-Irish-passport-turns-up-104660799.html

Raising a Russian revolution

FAMILY UNIT Debbie Deegan and her daughter Zina, at home in Clontarf, Dublin

FAMILY: In 1995, Zina Kurashina was picked out of thousands of Russian orphans to visit Ireland. She was subsequently adopted, and her mother, Debbie Deegan, set up a charity to help Russian orphans. Now, funds are drying up and Deegan is hoping a family-tracing business can keep the charity afloat, writes KATE HOLMQUIST 

WHEN 22-YEAR-OLD Zina Deegan sees a programme about Irish industrial schools in the 1940s and 1950s, she has to turn off the television. If she sees an article in the newspaper about the inhumane treatment of Irish children in institutions in the last century, she has to tear it up.

Zina was reared almost from birth in the brutally basic, clinical atmosphere of a Russian orphanage, and her way of coping with that has been to train as a professional nanny, so that she can give children the love she never had as a young child. She feels most comfortable with babies and young children and, when she’s in charge, the children in her care play outdoors, there is no television, and all their food is made from scratch – everything is done according to a schedule.

How she came to be working as a nanny in Dublin at all, after being taken as an infant from her alcoholic parents by the Russian authorities, is an extraordinary story, and one whose effects she still feels. Having come to terms with her past life as the neglected infant of alcoholic parents, she says she has learned to live in the present and grown in confidence. She doesn’t do self-pity.

At the orphanage where she was taken, 600 miles from Moscow in the forests of rural Russia, children were given minimal care, and sufficient food and education, but never love. Nobody exclaimed when Zina took her first steps and she didn’t know what Christmas was. Physical punishment was so routine that Zina and her friends instinctively protected one another. If one got into trouble, the others would move to do something worse to distract the attention of the adults in charge. Zina’s soul-mate was Pacha, a boy her age who was always by her side.

Her earliest memories are of holding other children while they cried. She remembers one little girl, old enough to know what was happening to her, being delivered to the orphanage, cuddling a blue teddy in her arms. The teddy was promptly taken away and locked in the big cupboard where all the good clothes and toys were kept until they were sold. The child was inconsolable. Zina and her friends would fantasise about breaking into the cupboard.

When she was seven, in 1995, a sort of miracle happened. A dozen orphans were chosen to visit Ireland – spot-picked by the Chernobyl Children’s Project out of 700,000 orphans in Russia. Zina remembers having her passport picture taken, then misbehaving so that she was locked into the room she slept in without supper once again. (She so often missed supper that her friends hid bread in their pockets for her.)

On the day of the trip to Ireland, she was as disoriented as the other children. She hadn’t been told where she was going. She’d never been in a car before, let alone an aircraft. As she was ferried along, no one explained what was happening. “We all knew not to ask. We were frightened rather than excited,” she says now, with a Dublin accent in the comfort of a cosy coffee shop.

Zina has no idea why she was chosen to visit Ireland, considering how bad she was always told she was. What she does remember is landing at the airport in Ireland, walking down a set of stairs on to the runway, and looking out for a sign with her name on it – Zina Kurashina. When she found the sign, she ran towards it, reached for the father of the family and instinctively said “papa”.

She was as surprised as he was when she uttered this word. She’d never called anyone papa in her life and had no concept of the term that she was consciously aware of. “It was weird – to this day, me and dad are so close.”

Dad was Mick Deegan, husband of Debbie Deegan, and their two children, Sophie (then 7) and Mikey (then 3). Arriving at their family home was too much to take in. Zina was used to an institution where she was told when to go to sleep, when to wake up, when to go to the toilet, when to eat. There was a bathroom she could use anytime but Zina was so used to being told when to go, on the clock, that she wet the bed because nobody told her to go before she went to bed. The ordinary chaos of Irish family life, with people eating what they liked, when they liked and sitting where they pleased, was so new as to be terrifying, yet by the end of two weeks Zina felt she had a mother, father, sister and brother.

When she returned to the orphanage after two weeks with her Irish family, all the clothes and toys they had given her were shoved in to the cupboard and sold. She was allowed to keep a few photographs.

“No way were we going to let her go,” says Debbie Deegan. She put the adoption process in train and got the shock of her life when she visited the Hortolova orphanage. “It was meagre, minimalist, the children were fed and watered and looked after to a point, but because of the numbers of children and the ratio of staff, they couldn’t possibly get one-to-one care.” She realised that Irish holidays and even individual adoption would not solve the problems of the 250 children in Zina’s orphanage.

This was to be the first of more than 200 visits by Debbie Deegan to Russia, where she is now an honorary citizen “with more medals than a war veteran” because in 1998, she started To Russia With Love, an organisation that has helped more than 5,000 abandoned and orphaned children in the Bryansk region of western Russia and further across the Russian Federation through education and development programmes. Last year, 69 per cent of young people leaving the Hortolova Orphanage entered third-level education, with all their costs covered by To Russia With Love, including tuition fees, education and living costs. The charity needs €500,000 per year to meet its obligations. This year, the first lawyer to benefit from the scheme has graduated, and since 2008 two other students have entered medical school. This is all thanks to the €8 million raised in Ireland in the past 12 years.

But now the money has dried up due to the recession in Ireland. This was always a personal project, with Debbie’s determination and charisma impressing the Russians enough to give her the red-carpet treatment, while at home she became a heroine, and was named Rehab International Person of the Year. But with the recession, she’s like a fairy godmother whose wand has lost its magic.

To Russia With Love has enough money left to last for three months, and needs to put together another €250,000 if the programmes at the orphanage are to last until May. Moscow and St Petersburg are awash with cash, but in rural Russia there is grinding poverty and philanthropy is not part of their tradition, says Debbie. She adds that while Russian authorities have been supportive, social entrepreneurship has yet to catch on.

Zina worries about the strain her mother is under. “Mum has 1,500 children in the orphanages and shelters totally dependent on her for their futures.”

One of Debbie Deegan’s plans to raise funds has been to start a tracing service, at a cost of €2,000 per trace, for adopted Russian orphans around the world, although she adds with not inconsiderable passion that a €10 donation would be enough from whatever source.

Tracing is problematic and needs to be handled carefully, Zina and her mother have learned. Debbie traced the twin brother of one orphan who was barely surviving as an impoverished Russian teenager. In the US, his twin brother had been adopted into extreme wealth, was going to an Ivy League school, and had a luxury car given to him for his birthday. When the twin brothers met, they couldn’t cope with one another.

Zina was reunited with a much older half-sister, as well as with her childhood soul-mate, Pacha, after Debbie searched for him for years. When Debbie brought Pacha to Ireland one Christmas, it was so overwhelming for Zina that she wanted nothing to do with him despite his affection for her. Being around him reawakened the pain of the orphanage and she couldn’t handle it.

Later, Zina visited Pacha in Russia, and all the pair could do was sit on a bench in the forest and hold hands, remembering the bond that had helped them to survive. She’d like to see him again some day and thinks he’ll visit Ireland again, but she says she needs more counselling first. Her many friends adopted into Ireland from other countries feel the same way, she says – they’re not ready to face their roots.

Zina adores Debbie and Mick, and her way of helping to run the Deegan household when her mother travels to Russia is to clean, cook, and keep everyone on their toes. Now that she’s working full-time, she gets up at 6.30am to make the family meals before she goes to work. As Zina explains it, she does this because, after her background in the orphanage, she needs things to be exceedingly well organised and to help her mother. Having created a successful charity on the crest of our short-lived years of prosperity, Debbie is struggling to keep her promises to the Russian orphans who rely on her.

For more information or to donate, see www.torussiawithlove.ie or tel: 01-8532920. Donations can also be lodged to AIB Artane, 62 St Brigid’s Road, Artane, Dublin 5 to account number 21221230, sort code 93-20-78. To make a €5 donation by text, send CHILD to 5780

Address by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Barry Andrews, T.D.at International Adoption Association Conference

9 October 2010

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Brian for the invitation to address your conference again this year. It is an understatement to say that intercountry adoption has been through a phase of great change over the last two years. I know that many in the adoption community call the journey a “rollercoaster ride” and given the highs and lows experienced I think it is a fair description of the adoption process.

The legislative framework underpinning adoption will obviously change as a result of the Adoption Bill when enacted on November 1st and it is only natural that change of this nature would lead to uncertainty and a degree of anxiety. The central guiding principle that directs me and my Office in legislating and formulating policy in this area is the best interests of the child. That is not to say that we ignore the genuine concerns and interests of Prospective Adoptive Parents. The two are not mutually exclusive and as I said last year at this conference, I absolutely believe that adoption is a legitimate and appropriate form of alternative care.

I would just like to outline very briefly some of the changes that have occurred since last October. At that stage, the Adoption Bill had passed all stages in Seanad Éireann and issues such as transitional arrangements, the “grandfather clause” and the role of organisations, such as the IAA, in the provision of information to prospective parents were all matters that had been debated on the floor of the Seanad and outside in the adoption community. If I am not mistaken, Brian handed me a letter or submission on behalf of the IAA at last year’s conference – with positions clearly set out on all the aforementioned issues.

Last October, the bill did not provide for a transitional arrangement that would assist people in the middle of the adoption process. Following constructive discussions with Brian, Shane Downer and others, I proposed that an amendment be made to the bill to enable people who were at an advanced stage to complete their adoptions from non-Hague countries. There were further discussions on what “an advanced stage” would be taken to mean and following receipt of helpful advice from the Hague Conference, it was decided that people who had obtained their declarations of eligibility and suitability to adopt by the bill’s establishment date could proceed and complete their adoptions from non-Hague countries. I think the declaration point is the fairest and most definable point that could have been chosen to base the transitional arrangement.

Though the bill passed all stages in the Oireachtas and was signed into law by the President in July, the actual process of Hague ratification has taken a further three months. In normal circumstances, a bill would be commenced a month after the President has signed the legislation. I thought it only proper that the bill should not be commenced until the full Hague ratification process was completed, which will take us up until November 1st.

I am conscious that people will always fall the wrong side of a date on a calendar and the legislation can be blind to individuals’ circumstances. However, if you consider that the Bill was first published in January 2009, we have had quite a long lead in period to the new legislative landscape that November will bring.

At various stages over the past year, there have been delays in the assessment process, vetting and the issuing of declarations. These issues were raised with me in meetings with the IAA and working with the HSE, An Garda Siochana and the Adoption Board we sought to improve existing systems to cut down on waiting times and we approved the release of extra manpower within the Adoption Board to expedite the issuing of declarations. I would like to formally thank the HSE, An Garda Siochana and the Adoption Board for working with my Office to deliver a service in a timely fashion to prospective adoptive parents. After many years of undue delay in waiting for assessments, I am pleased that at least the journey from assessment to Adoption Board approval has improved in the last year.

I know that there are some people who are still awaiting declarations and are anxious that their files be assessed before the end of the month. I know you will hear from the Chair of the Adoption Board, Geoffrey Shannon, this afternoon but I know that both he and the Garda Vetting Unit in Thurles are working to ensure that people are accommodated and decisions made before the end of the month.

It has been often stated that the purpose of the Adoption Bill is to allow for transposition of the Hague Convention in to Irish law and to establish the Adoption Authority of Ireland. It is sometimes said that the ratification of Hague will lead to the closure of sending countries and a fundamental change in relationships with non-Hague countries. It is true that post November 1st, declarations will only be issued in respect of either Hague ratified countries or countries with which Ireland has a bilateral agreement. It is the case that Irish prospective adoptive parents will navigate towards different countries in the future. The age profile of children, the number of children that are available for adoption, the time between referral and actual adoption and is some cases the children’s medical needs will likely change as a result of Hague ratification. It is important that prospective adoptive community are aware that the changes are likely.

All countries, whether they are receiving or countries of origin, have an obligation to take proactive measures in order to guarantee that the adoptions that are entered into are as safe as possible. There will always be a level of risk associated with intercountry adoption. It behoves both the sending and receiving countries to reduce that risk. The receiving country can rarely reach behind the processes and practices of the sending country to guarantee that everything is 100 percent above board. However, when information is put into the public domain concerning practice in a sending country, the receiving country is obliged to act.

Some people in this room anticipated that they would adopt from Vietnam and were hugely disappointed by the news back in January that the Irish Government was to break off negotiations with Vietnam on a new bilateral agreement until such time as both countries ratified Hague. Given the information that was available to us, I am not sure that there could have been any other decision. I know that some people will disagree with that but we cannot ignore the strides that Vietnam has taken in recent months towards Hague ratification. I am not suggesting that the Vietnamese are acting solely in response to decisions taken by the Irish Government but it is noteworthy that since the spotlight has focused on Vietnam, there has been a solid progress in preparing for Hague ratification. I am hopeful that Vietnam will ratify Hague early next year. I have heard the date of January 1st mentioned but I am not sure whether that date will be reached. What I can say is that when Vietnamratifies Hague I believe we will be able to recommence adoptions from there and we will work with Vietnamto improve standards and practice over time. I think that one of Hague’s guiding principles is that it is by working with sending countries that you improve standards. In that regard, the Adoption Board informed me last Wednesday that it intends to write to the Department of International Adoption in Hanoi to inform the Vietnamese Government that it would like to commence negotiations around an administrative agreement that could be effective when Vietnam ratifies the Hague Convention.

I would really like to stress that just because I am talking about raising standards by working with countries like Vietnam it should not be read that there is some question mark over adoptions that have already been effected. Standards in intercountry adoption should evolve and we can only respond to the information that is available at any given time. Decisions made on the basis of information in the past cannot, and should not, be picked over with the benefit of hindsight.

Many will wish to know what progress is being made in respect of Hague countries and administrative arrangements. I would just premise my remarks on the issue by saying that sending countries, including Hague countries, open and close. The Adoption Board has commenced the process of engaging with Hague countries to explore the putting in place of administrative arrangements. Geoffrey Shannon mentioned some of these countries at a recent IAA seminar and they include: the Philippines, the U.S.A., South Africa, Bulgaria and Thailand. The Adoption Board has also written to Kazakhstan and Brazil to enquire about possible arrangements with those countries. A response received from Bulgaria this week is positive – stating that Bulgaria wishes to engage with Ireland and this will be followed up on next week.

The South African Central Authority recently responded to say that they are not in a position to work with us this year and I realise this caused a lot of disappointment when the Adoption Board placed a notice to this effect on its website a couple of weeks ago. Both I and the Adoption Board wish to be as open as possible with you. We want to share the information that we have in relation to updates on countries that we are in contact with. However, part of this process involves uncertainty and we cannot put pressure on sending countries to enter into arrangements with us if there are not children available for intercountry adoption. All of the advice available to Governments warns against competing with each other for adoptable children. Given the length of time it took Ireland to ratify Hague, it must be said that many Hague sending countries already have arrangements in place with receiving Hague countries and we are joining the club late in the day. I say this not to as an attempt to try to discourage or disappoint but simply to be honest and present an accurate picture of the current landscape.

The Adoption Act specifically provides for the negotiation of bilateral agreements and many will be keen to know whether the Government intends to pursue bilaterals with non-Hague countries such as Russia and Ethiopia. I will be honest and say that I would like to be briefing you on more progress in relation to bilaterals than is the case. The primary focus of my Office in the past year has been the passage of the legislation and preparation for Hague ratification. However, it is the express wish of the Oireachtas that where Hague standard bilaterals can be negotiated and concluded. The current position whereby various regions in Ireland are appearing and then disappearing from the Russian Ministry of Education’s blacklist is unsatisfactory and causing great unease. The Russian Government has made it clear that if adoptions are to continue, they wish to see bilaterals put in place. I am aware that the US and New Zealand are currently negotiating bilaterals with Russia. I spoke to the Irish Ambassador in Moscow yesterday and told him that I intend to pursue the matter of a bilateral with the Russian Ambassador in Dublin in the coming weeks and establish whether it is possible to put in place a bilateral agreement with Russia that provides safety around the issues of consent and the financial costs of effecting an adoption. As you know, there is a legal complication surrounding the provision of post placement reports but this matter can be explored in the context of diplomatic talks.

The progress with Ethiopia may be slower. My Office has limited resources and simply cannot conduct two sets of bilateral negotiations, which of themselves are extremely complex, at the same time. Information provided by our Embassy in Addis Ababa over the summer suggests that the Ethiopian Government is moving towards Hague ratification but there can be no timeframe put on the passage of legislation. Before a bilateral could be pursued, it is probable that an Irish mediation agency would have to be operational in the country and the allocation of funds would have to be fully transparent and accountable.

It is vitally important that we put in place an administrative framework that supports Hague membership and best practice. The establishment of the Adoption Authority will be central to the administration of adoption, domestic and intercountry, for many years to come. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Adoption Board for its work, commitment and dedication to children and families in Ireland stretching back to 1953.

The Adoption Act provides for the establishment of accredited bodies, which are intended to support the adoption process. Though not mandatory under the Hague Convention, it is widely accepted that mediation agencies strengthen protections around adoption. I know that there is interest in establishing new mediation agencies and am hopeful that this can be done as soon as possible. To this end, advertisements will appear in next week’s newspapers calling for expressions of interest to operate mediation agencies. Obviously, the new Authority will have to license these agencies and register them when approved.

I said many months ago that the Bill provides for the HSEto engage accredited bodies to carry out assessments and other adoption services. As far as I am concerned, I would like to see the HSEdiverting social work resources away from assessments for intercountry adoption and into child protection and family support work. Though this will not happen over night, and new accredited bodies will have to build capacity and establish a track record in carrying out assessments, I am convinced that this is the right way to go and have made my views known to the HSEon the issue.

The availability of timely and accurate information is an integral part of the adoption process. I fully recognise that my Office, the HSEand the new Adoption Authority need to improve the way in which we share information with the adoption community. Sometimes, I and my officials cannot because of confidentiality reasons share information with you. However, speculation and at times misinformation flourish in an information vacuum. A new Adoption Authority website will be launched over the coming weeks to coincide with the enactment of the new legislation and the aim is to create a portal that hosts all the relevant information in respect of adoption and a site on which all new information can be made available.

To conclude, the adoption process has undergone huge change in the last couple of years. The process is incredibly legalistic because it involves the severing of links between a child and a parent and establishing them with another parent or set of parents. It is a tremendously emotional journey and yet legal rigour must be applied. The various bodies charged with operating the adoption process can, as a result, appear at times rigid and forbidding. This period of change is going to continue for a while to come. Membership of Hague is intended to improve standards in intercountry adoption. However, the desire to further improve should not end with Hague ratification. I firmly believe we should work with both Hague sending and receiving countries to promote the highest standards in intercountry adoption. Perseverance and deep personal commitment is required to complete an intercountry adoption. I think we need to be very open about the challenges involved in the process. There are few certainties or guarantees and on occasion Governments, whether they be sending or receiving States, will make decisions to open or close and prospective adoptive parents are left not knowing which way to turn. It is my hope that new administrative agreements can be put in place with Hague countries. Furthermore, I would like to explore in detail the prospects of negotiating a bilateral agreement with Russia.

I thank you for your attention.