Dr. Fred Logue:

I can answer that. Again, the starting point is that people have a right of access to their file. If there are to be restrictions, they must meet a general interest objective, as set out in Article 23, and they must be necessary and proportionate. That means there must be an objective link between the restriction and the objective and it cannot be more than is actually necessary to achieve that objective. Information and studies are needed on what is the actual harm in giving adopted people access to their files. We cannot have the anecdotalism - people saying they know somebody - that seems to have polluted the discourse for the past ten years. Somebody needs to find out what the actual problem is. I say that because we have open access almost everywhere else in Europe and there is not chaos over there. Adopted people are not turning up and murdering, attacking or harassing their parents. We need to know why we in Ireland are so special we cannot let adopted people find out the names of their birth mothers or give them their birth certificates. What is so bad in Ireland that we need to have this swingeing restriction on people's fundamental rights? That question has never been answered and if it cannot be answered, then adopted people should get all their information - end of.