Mr. Dale Sunderland:

I thank the Deputy for his question. He rightly pointed to article 15.4. Article 15 is part of the GDPR, which came into application in Ireland in May 2018. As I said earlier, article 15 acknowledges that an individual's right of access to personal information is not an absolute right. It can be restricted if the information could adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others. In the specific context of the Bill, article 15.4 relates to the right of privacy of the birth parent or, particularly, of the right of the mother. That is the core right in play. In essence, the Bill facilitates the right of access. It gives expression to article 15 in respect of the relevant person's broad ability to access information about themselves. However, it has to be done by balancing, or looking at, the other rights. It has to conclude whether those rights are being adversely affected. There is, therefore, a balancing act between the different rights.

The implementation of safeguards can provide justification for a measure. It appears to the DPC that the Bill seeks to achieve that in number of ways. It proposes a form of safeguards to protect the rights and freedoms of others. For example, only an individual aged 16 or older can be issued with a birth certificate. It allows parents to register their contact preference to the national adoption contact preference register. It proposes an information campaign during the three-month time period, following the commencement of section 3 of the Bill. It proposes that only a relevant person can apply for a birth certificate following the passing the of the three-month time period. Where a no-contact preference is registered, there has to be an information session, and so on. It is not for the DPC to say whether they are effective safeguards. It appears to us that the purpose of all those measures within the Bill is to strike the right balance and ensure the privacy rights of the birth parents are not overly or adversely impacted. It seems appropriate to us that the Oireachtas would provide means to ensure that the balance is appropriately struck, and that this right is not adversely or overly impacted. The Deputy referred to balancing. That is what we see the Bill trying to do. We will see what has been provided to us by the Department in its DPIA. We expect within that assessment to see a further elaboration on each of these measures and how the Department believes that these are appropriate safeguards that allow the right balance to be struck and provides for this broad right of access to information to be allowed in a way, as Article 15.4, states, “adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others”. We have raised a number of questions, to which I can speak later, if the Deputy so wishes. However, we have raised in the observations we provided to the committee a number of the issues we would like to raise.