Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being with us today. I echo what has been shared by Senator McGreehan on terminology. I respect the Minister's remarks and replies but, even in the context of all this, the use of the word "adoptee" can be reductive because there are those who were not adopted but illegally placed. There were all sorts of illegalities in regard to them. In our pursuit of accurate language, we should not delay the Bill in any way, nor should we delay moving to a place where people have rights. I am anxious about that.

Throughout this process, I have been struck very strongly by the needs for a new agency and for us to move to a place where we can put behind us the baggage of the past, some of the expressions that have been used and the treatment of people by some of the existing agencies, which fell far short of professional. We are anxious to put these behind us as quickly as possible.

Let me move on to my questions. I would like to address the matter of the information session. I completely respect the fear and hurt caused to people who have been adopted, or were otherwise removed from those who gave birth to them, by their being considered a threat to those who gave birth to them, or by any inference in that regard. I deplore any allegation or inference of that kind. However, I too have received anonymous telephone calls and letters from people who are fearful about who may show up on the door because they have never told anyone in their lives that they give birth to a child. They believe there is a threat to their current life. I can understand why, when we are looking for a constitutional solution, we need to discharge our responsibility regarding the right to privacy of such a person. The lawyer in me moves to the worst-case scenario, namely, a suit against the State involving the question of what we have done to discharge our obligation on the right to privacy. I understand that but, in regard to the information session, what alternative was considered? Was the information session the only solution? Group after group has come out against the idea. There are a couple of flaws in the idea of the information session.

In the Minister's remarks today, which I really appreciated, he referred to the idea of upset being caused to people by their being told someone does not want to make contact with them, yet this issue is about discharging the rights of the person who has expressed a right to no contact. That centres the provision on the person who is going to be the recipient of the information as opposed to the person who wants no contact. That may be a flaw in our argument.

The second point concerns the circumstances if we have established that an information session has to be held if there is no contact. If I were seeking my birth certificate and all my information and the response I got was a call to an information session, I would then know I was going be told there was to be no contact. I would already know from the letter or other form of communication inviting me to the meeting that I was going to be told there was to be no contact. In a way, this undermines the value of the session.

The other problem concerns the idea of the solution being found in tracing when mothers want to contact their children. I am aware of situations in which family members have been left a letter in a will informing them they have a sibling somewhere.

If there is a flaw in the information, then tracing is not going to work. If the birth was registered illegally, there is going to be no means of tracing. I know that I have thrown a couple of issues at the Minister. The information session is my main concern but I can return to the issue of tracing in the second round.