Averil Power (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ms Mugan said a compelling reason may be that hearing the adopted son or daughter is seeking information may cause distress to the parent. It is really important to make the distinction between information and contact. Surely what causes distress in those situations is the prospect of unwanted contact, not the information. I completely understand the situation. That is why our Bill provided that the adoptee’s birth parents' current details should only be given out with their consent. That is fair enough. One cannot force people to have a relationship if they do not wish to. The adopted person has a right, however, to his or her identity.

Dr. Shannon, who addressed the committee prior to this session, spoke very strongly on that constitutional right. There should be no compelling reasons to deny information. I accept that contact is a sensitive issue but it is a separate issue. It is important to understand that. That can be dealt with by reassuring the birth mother that her husband will not open the door to find her son or daughter standing on the doorstep, that the process already includes a provision by which the adopted son or daughter will be told whether the mother wishes to have contact.

It is also important to understand that because birth records are public records if somebody wants to do a trace he or she can. There are no intermediaries, which means there is a greater risk of unwanted contact at present. As things stand, the only way an adopted person can find out if his or her birth parent wishes to have contact is to reach out because there is no intermediary. The system we are putting in place will make unwanted contact less likely because it has the right protections and supports for everybody involved. I cannot stress that enough. It is really important. I do not accept that there should be any compelling reasons. There is other legislation to deal with issues involving endangerment of life. If compelling reasons are to be included they need to be incredibly restrictive. It cannot be a general notion of distress because that is far too all-encompassing and potentially leads to the adoptive person’s right being reduced to nil.