Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Gibney for her presentation. It is different hearing it read by its writer versus reading it myself, so it was good to hear her comments.

I wish to get straight to the nub of the issue. It is great that information is being made available to adoptees, which is as it should be, but there is a competing right that the Government is trying to, and the State needs to, vindicate. The reference in the presentation to birth mothers being fearful of undisclosed information being revealed were tender and moving words, given that I know this to be a difficulty for them. It is not that they perceive adoptees making contact as a threat. Rather, it has to do with their current circumstances, for example, the families they are now in, or the knowledge they have carried for a lifetime and that they do not want to return to. This difficulty is personal to the birth mother in most cases, not the adoptees. I wish to be clear that adoptees are not perceived as a threat.

I agree with Ms Gibney that there is a disconnect between the information session and the objective of the action. From reading it, I understand it to be an attempt to vindicate a person's right to privacy while also being sure the other person is told the information. Do the witnesses have suggestions as to how that right of the birth mother is vindicated but not at the expense of the adoptee, who has an entitlement to unfettered access to his or her information? That is the challenge in this legislation.