Averil Power (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Geoffrey Shannon for his presentation and for his work on this issue over many years. He has long championed the right to identity and general improvements in adoption law. An issue that already has been touched on is that of compelling reasons, which is something about which I am deeply concerned because members do not know precisely what that involves. There is a risk it then might open a door to challenges and uncertainty until the courts actually hear a case and decide what it covers. In Dr. Shannon's view, is this really necessary? We have existing legislation and, again, I cannot think of a scenario it is intended to cover. The Minister has stated it concerns life-and-death situations and one assumes there is something about harassment or something similar or a threat to somebody's life. Again, I do not see why this arises specifically in this context, as opposed to in other walks of life and human interaction that are covered perfectly by existing legislation. The non-fatal offences legislation and other legislative items cover sufficiently all manner of harassments. In Dr. Shannon's view, is this actually necessary, given that other legal provisions are in place?

The same is true for the statutory declaration. As Dr. Shannon is aware, both the Adoption Rights Alliance and the Irish First Mothers group, which represents women who have been separated from their children by adoption, have criticised this provision and have stated they find it to be offensive. It is based on an unfair assumption that adoptive people are insensitive or irrational and would wish to push themselves into the lives of parents who do not wish to have that involvement. While this is not the case in my experience, is it the same for Dr. Shannon? Even in situations in which people may be disappointed there will not be contact - incidentally, that works both ways, in that one can have parents reaching out and the adopted person not wishing to have contact - obviously these are difficult situations and can be highly emotional and distressing but, in my experience, people respect that. One cannot force somebody to have a relationship with one who does not wish to so do. Nevertheless, this is an extremely heavy-handed and unnecessary legal obstacle and is an insensitive way to deal with a minority of circumstances. This Bill should be legislating for the majority of cases in which it will be a positive experience and there will not be issues and we should allow existing law to deal with the minority of cases in which there might be a problem.

On illegal adoptions, Senator van Turnhout also has touched on this point but what more can be done? This must be a highly proactive process. Obviously, having access to a birth certificate is completely useless to somebody whose birth certificate was falsified. There are records throughout the State and presumably in some nurses' registers, such as the registers of Nurse Doody. In addition, general practitioners, GPs, and solicitors were involved in informal adoptions. As the existence of some of these records may not be known, how can this be pieced together and what would a proactive system of helping people look like? It is really important that people who had their identities robbed from them through that process also be helped, perhaps even more so.

However, I again thank Dr. Shannon for the presentation. I thought it was particularly strong on the right to identity and the misinterpretation of the I. O'T. v. B. case ,which drives me crazy and is constantly rolled out as a reason not to do anything. Having read the details of the case, I always felt this was wrong but, as Dr. Shannon is a much more experienced lawyer than I, it was powerful and persuasive to hear him say it. I thank him for making that contribution as well.