I take the Minister's point, but she has not sealed all the hatches. A wide range of adoption agencies exists: some of them are big, some are small and some are specialist, dealing with a small number of children for overseas adoptions for some communities in this country. She said that the local authority or another adoption agency might notify the Department, but she should take into account the friction that exists between some people in the adoption world. It might suit some people's book that a particular adoption agency no longer continued in practice. We need a keener definition of ''inactive or defunct''.

The Minister failed to tell us what would happen if a Minister decided that it appeared to him or her that an agency was ''inactive or defunct'' and that agency reared its head and said, ''No, we are not inactive or defunct.'' If the Minister had taken measures determining that it was inactive or defunct, what recourse to appeal would there be and how would it work? Again, we are not dealing with mainstream cases. However, owing to the nature of the subject, I can envisage cases in which specialist adoption agencies in particular found shutters being closed on them as they went about their normal business. It does not mean that they are defunct or inactive merely because they have not fulfilled such a high quota of adoptions in a certain period.

The Minister may not be able to give me a full response, but the problem needs consideration. There should be a clear right of appeal for an agency when Ministers deem it appropriate that it be subject to such an order.