Ms Sinéad Gibney:

I thank the committee for its invitation to this meeting. IHREC is Ireland's independent national human rights institution and national equality body. Our commission of 15 met in plenary today and approved our written recommendations to this committee, which will we send on later.

This legislation engages significant rights issues, including the rights to identity, privacy, equality and non-discrimination, health, bodily, physical and mental integrity, freedom of expression, dignity and know. While the commission welcomes that the proposed legislation grants the right to access birth and early life information, we would make recommendations on a number of issues, namely, the right of access to birth certificates and early life information, "no contact" preference and counselling, the child's access rights, and access for relatives of deceased relevant persons.

In my listening sessions with mother and baby home survivors, it was clearly stated that the right to truth was key. "Free and unfettered" access to their personal information and records is essential for survivors. To deny this could in itself be retraumatising, particularly for older survivors, and, therefore, the burden on legislators to shape this pivotal law effectively is a heavy one. It is also important for the State's approach to recognise that, while this legislation must vindicate rights to truth denied to so many for so long, there is a corollary that there are birth mothers who have been living under a cloud as inquiries, debates and now legislation happened, fearful that undisclosed information would be revealed. It is important to be mindful of all.

The IO'T v.B Supreme Court case has repeatedly been cited as the reason adoptees cannot be provided with unfettered access to their birth and early life information. While the Supreme Court set out that the birth parent enjoyed a right to privacy and confidentiality, it followed that such a right was not absolute. The courts have sought legislation from these Houses to support the balancing of rights on access to information. The provision of birth certificates or early life information is, by definition, the vindication of the right to identity, to personality and to private and family life for adopted people.

People seeking access to the records at the centre of the Bill have suffered delays, often of many years, and, therefore, this legislation should mark a sea change in approach. Therefore, the commission recommends that statutory timeframes for compliance with information requests should be set out. We also recommend that this legislation establish a system for the management of records across agencies and locations that ensures that significant delays are avoided.

The requirement for an information session where there is a no contact preference appears to cater to the privacy rights of natural parents. However, the extent to which this requirement will achieve that aim is questionable, as the information will ultimately be provided and the theoretical contact will be possible once the information session is held. This requirement would present a further obstacle to affected persons in accessing long-sought information. Where the relevant person does not want to undergo an information session, it represents a complete barrier. We recommend that this requirement be removed from the legislation or, if retained, it should be transformed into no-obligation counselling, support and information services tailored to the needs and wishes of the individual and co-designed with him or her.

Children have material questions about their birth and background. However, head 3(1) provides that only a relevant person aged 16 years or over will have the right of access to his or her birth certificate. Heads 5, 6 and 7 similarly restrict access to birth information, early life information, care information, and birth and medical information to those aged over 16. We believe this approach to be inconsistent with the right to identity under the children's rights convention as well as a child's right to his or her identity under the European Convention on Human Rights and case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The committee may be interested in knowing that other EU states, including Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Italy and Sweden, make provision for children, albeit with different conditions, as we have set out in the paper that we will submit.

We also recommend that a proposed restriction of access to materials to "relevant persons" should be reconsidered, given that this "relevant person" could be deceased but his or her birth relatives could be seeking access, including for medical reasons.

We are happy to take questions. If I may, I recommend that, rather than asking questions through me, members ask questions and we will respond accordingly, depending on who is the appropriate person.