Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will do my best to address those questions. The Deputy stated it was confusing who gets unrestricted access to information under GDPR when we then talk about restrictions. We have taken the decision, and it is one I think everyone agrees with, that we have to provide adopted people with unrestricted access to the various categories of information. In certain circumstances, that requires a restriction on the rights of others; in this case, the rights of a parent. That is inherent in the process.

To address the Deputy's last question about the information session, that is what we are trying to achieve here. A constitutional right to privacy is recognised in Irish law. There is also a constitutional right to identity information. In a circumstance where a parent, or a mother, does not wish the fact he or she gave a child up for adoption to be known, his or her right to privacy is conflicting with the identity rights of the adopted person. Our legislation has to find a way of balancing that. The Constitution and the courts allow the Oireachtas to balance rights, but it has to be seen that both sets of rights have been taken into consideration in the legislation. That is why we see the meeting as very important because it all times guarantees the provision of full access to information for the adopted person but also ensures the privacy rights of, for example, the mother are present in this process if that mother has requested no contact and that is conveyed to the adopted person. A meeting has been used and brought forward-----