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

If I may, I would like to come in on that point before I have to leave to go to the Dáil Chamber. It is a case of unfortunate timing. The Minister is quoting back to me, as I had anticipated. I have been measured in my comments. I acknowledge that this is a far preferable option that the Minister is presenting us with as a means of balancing rights. A few years ago, when we proposed the information session as an alternative to the signing of the statutory declaration and so on, that would have been preferable but things have moved on. Just as incremental change becomes embedded and then more radical change is necessary, so too with the journey of this legislation, if I might put it that way. It started out with a whole series of different conditions being placed on access to records.

At the point I put forward the information session, I was working very closely with the former Minister, Katherine Zappone, to try to achieve a compromise in order that we could get the legislation through. That was the intent. That was everyone's desire at the time, most of all adopted persons. We did work on different methods of doing that but at the time, the information session was opposed by the Attorney General as being unduly protective of the privacy rights of the birth mother. The reality is we could not get that passed. Clearly, things have shifted at the Attorney General's Office, but so too have they shifted in terms of our understanding of the rights of identity or of privacy rights. The I.O'T v. B.case is now even more dated. There is no specific right of privacy in the Constitution. We are still relying on that interpretation in I.O'T v. B. and, clearly, the Attorney General's view has changed over the years. It is fair to say that in terms of what would have been acceptable and preferable some years ago, the understanding has moved on. That is the spirit in which I offered these amendments. It is the spirit of our consensus in the pre-legislative scrutiny in terms of the registered post option put forward in the report. I hope to return to the meeting.