Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What Ms Mac Manus said shows that it is a lifelong need that has to be fulfilled. I will leave this meeting impacted by that. When this Bill was presented and as we have gone through it, we have seen it and hoped to report on it as being the right of adults and children to know who they are and to be able to trace who they are. To be honest, I was very pleased with where we were going with that, but today abruptly stops me in my tracks with the thought that we have missed a big step here. Let me try to reflect what I have heard. The step is, first and foremost, that there is basic information that the witnesses, as mothers, have a right to know about the care of their children. That is perhaps the least of the justified demands that I am hearing the witnesses share.

The second is the consent given. I am a privacy lawyer by trade and consent must be fully informed and freely given for it to be truthful. If girls did not understand the form they were filling out and could mistake an adoption form for a boarding out form, it is not consent. If the opportunity is absolutely not even offered, then there is no consent. That context of deliberate misleading and deliberate misinformation has to be borne in mind when we consider the right to information and who has that right to information.

I heard the witnesses articulate very movingly that they remember birthdays and Christmas and that they wonder about major events. I can only imagine what that must be like and how difficult and challenging it is. I am also hearing an anxiety about the files. Clearly, there is access to the files to some degree, given that the witnesses can know the difference between them. I am assuming that is the general data protection regulation, GDPR. On what basis are the witnesses seeing the files? I know also from the GDPR that they have a right to amend and correct where there is wrongful content in the files. Perhaps an information piece has to happen about people's entitlement to that. What I am hearing is that the files are not accurate. There is a concern that the notes in them are jaundiced because they were written by people with an agenda and a context. Perhaps they were nearly reckless as to the content. It may have been human error for a small minority, or perhaps deliberate misleading and cover-up statements. The witnesses have a right to know about their babies, what happened to their babies and the content of the file. There is also an anxiety that when the grown-up baby gets that information, the information accurately portrays the mother and that the mother has a right to put a context on that.

I was struck by the words that the witnesses have a right to paint their personalities. That is very powerful. They are anxious to communicate who they are to the child. The information leaflet needs to be more comprehensive. I am very taken by having somebody sit with the witness to go through the file and to provide her with assistance and context. Perhaps the accumulation of knowledge from that person after seeing lots of different files would mean the person could say, "That is what that means", so the witnesses would get the benefit of that advice. I hear that very strongly.

I have been contacted anonymously and there are mothers who do not want contact because of their current circumstances. It is not because of the child, but they want to keep it secret due to their current circumstances. It may be difficult for them to come forward and seek the file to make sure about the file. Do we need an information campaign to say these files are here and a sensitivity from the State that there may be gross inaccuracies here?

I ask the witnesses to reflect their thoughts back. Is that it? That is what I think I am hearing the witnesses say.