Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms McDermott for that clarification. It is powerful for us to understand why the term "birth mother" is problematic for some people. My own preference would be to use the word "mother" for everybody because the term "natural" is difficult for those women who lived with their children and had the opportunity to rear them. Some have come before the committee and talked about the difficulty of being referred to as unnatural and of that being seen as opposite of natural.

Finding the right formula of words here is certainly going to be a challenge but after hearing why, it is the best explanation for why being referred to as "birth mother" is such a sensitive term. I really get that and hear that.

When Ms Kiernan and I last met, she quoted the line "deny until they die" from Banished Babies. I wrote it down then and had it ready to come back to her today because I thought it was really powerful. It is important that we are all very much upfront in what is going on here and about what needs to be articulated and, hence, that is why we wanted to make sure our guests came before the committee to speak to us.

The Bill has a portion that is supposed to address having a bespoke solution to ensure the legality of the identities people believe they had and believe they are and with which they have lived all of their lives. Some people are content to continue with that identity or name and others are not. Allowing for the fact that the official register of births needs to now be corrected, where possible, and allowing for the fact that there was such unlawful activity going on with some of the information that was given, I am not sure some of the information is going to be able to be sorted out. There is, therefore, an issue that we need to perhaps explore a little bit. That is where DNA is a really good solution. I heard Ms Kiernan speak about that previously. I know places like Ormond Quay Paternity Services carry out DNA testing for the courts' purposes but it is very expensive. It comes in just shy of €1,800 to €2,000. That is phenomenally expensive for people.

Could Ms Kiernan perhaps talk about that if she does not mind? Could she outline her views of the bespoke solution that is within the Bill and how appropriate that is or how that needs to be amended? I will hand over to her.