Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am located in Leinster House. I thank the witnesses for their contributions today. I have been engaging on this legislation since I was first elected in 2016. It has been a long conversation, never mind all the conversations that took place in this area in the ten, 20 and 30 years before that. Having come to the issue with new eyes as a legislator, it seems to me that many of the conversations we are having today were already had, the decision has been made and the indication given by the Department that information will be accessible. We are getting stuck on the issue of how the preference for no contact will be communicated. A compulsory meeting with a social worker is an arbitrary thing that was decided on as what would best provide balance. All the conversations we have as we go forward need to focus on how best to communicate a preference for no contact.

How do we best communicate a non-preference? It is not about the rights that have gone past. It is not about the hierarchy of those rights because the heads of Bill relating to this state the information will be given. It is about ensuring the information is given in a way that is respectful and dignified and such that we are moving on instead of going back over a historical balancing of rights.

Right now what I am hearing from the submissions that have come in is the suggestion that how the information is to be given is still discriminatory and stigmatising. There is no evidence to show that a non-contact preference given in a building or institution in the presence of a social worker will produce more effective protection of privacy than it would were it given on video or in an information booklet. The most important thing is that the information relating to non-preference is given. How it is given should not be a compulsory thing. We all receive information differently. That is the angle we need to be looking at for that argument.

My question is for Ms McGettrick or Dr. O'Rourke. If access is to be unfettered, what we are saying is that on the request of information someone has offered, a person may want an information session. Is that correct? If a subject refuses, then the person is still given all the information as normal but what comes with that information is the information that the person would have got in an information session so there is no non-preference. Then a follow-up is offered to establish whether the person needs any further clarification on what that means. At every stage the person is choosing whether to engage further and what that means or does not mean for that person.

I wish to speak more to why that is so discriminatory. I read the Clann project submission on this and the reference to the headlines from the UK two decades ago and how that is being replicated here. There was also reference to the fact that we are replicating something that did not cause a major issue whenever the legislation was introduced in the UK. How traumatising it is to see those headlines all the time. It is as if adoptees are seen as some kind of threat. Could we speak to why the information session further compounds that and is a re-traumatisation of forcing a situation on people that they do not want?

The other question I had relates to head 38 specifically. It provides an exemption for the Government and the authorities and removes accountability by making statutory provision for the full immunity from damages claims unless an act was done in bad faith. Could Dr. O'Rourke or Mr. O'Brien discuss what that means? Are there any concerns around the provision in head 38? Is it problematic in any sense?