Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I raised the point about how we meet the balancing of rights. Our understanding of what is necessary to carry out that has clearly shifted over time because at one point it was thought the birth parent would require a veto in order for the balance to be constitutionally robust. It seems that now that an information session – the word "session" is a very unlegal word in the Bill – is compulsory only some is enough to meet the balance along with the other limitations.

I disagree with having a meeting that is compulsory for all applicants. I think the Minister will agree it is the compulsory aspect of it that is problematic, creates the condition and is paternalistic. If we offered optional counselling or information to all applicants in the same way we are offering it to all birth parents, I believe that, along with the temporal limitation and the three-month period, would be sufficient elements of a mechanism to address the balance. When we first discussed this three-month publicity campaign some years ago, and I raised it with officials based on my experience of the Residential Institutions Redress Board, it was envisaged that that in itself was recognising and acknowledging there would be women in particular who had given up children for adoption in circumstances of secrecy, who had never told anyone and whose privacy rights would be acknowledged through this three-month period and this publicity campaign. It seems to me that this is also an element of the mechanism to meet those rights. Why can we not move entirely away from the compulsory meeting aspect? Why can we not instead have compulsory provision of information through a booklet, certainly, and an offer of optional counselling or information, especially when there is no veto in any case? My final point about the three-month publicity process is that it is clearly aimed at publicity for all, that is, for adopted persons as well as birth parents. What happens if somebody comes forward after the three months? There is reference to that in the explanatory memorandum but that will probably have to be provided for in the provisions of the Bill itself.