Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It would not have been nice for Deputy Bacik to have had to run and then for me to have made the point.

If we accept there is a need for the balancing of constitutional rights, the question then is what is the best way to do this. I have set forward the reasons I believe, and more importantly why others believe, the information session and the provision of the conveying of the preference of the parent to the adopted person is the best way to go. We discussed with the Attorney General and counsel the option of a letter. It is not that we did not consider it. The issue has been considered. There are practical issues with a registered letter, particularly in the context of the amendment tabled by Deputy Bacik that everything would then have to be done by post. The issuing of information would have to be done by post because it would have to contain the registered letter and the bundle of information. Plenty of people want their information via email. This means two sets of information would have to be sent out. There are practical issues for data controllers in all of this.

The Deputy is right that the balancing mechanism has gone through various iterations. Each iteration has brought the balance more in favour of the adopted persons and their right to identity but at the same time has lessened the privacy rights of the parent.

If that balance continues to move over, there comes a point where the privacy right will no longer be recognised by a court as a proper defence in terms of proportionality. I hope we both agree on that. In term of what is essential here, the no-contact preference is the final protection of the privacy right and that must be conveyed to the adopted person. Is the best way to convey that a registered letter, where we will never know if the person actually read it or saw the line about the no-contact preference? If there is a phone call, a physical meeting or an online meeting, we know the preference has been conveyed. I am making changes and I will speak to them in a moment but that is the core element of what is necessary to ensure the right to privacy is sufficiently present and balanced in all of this. When a no-contact preference is stated by a parent, it must be directly conveyed to the adopted person. That is not the case with a registered letter. While we considered the registered letter, we believe direct conveyance of the no-contact preference is the correct way to go.