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

Yes. I will bring forward these amendments to change the text in respect of the information session. Currently, the three points of which the designated official will inform the adopted person in the information session are:

(a) the entitlement of the relevant person to obtain, in accordance with this Act, his or her birth certificate, or birth information relating to him or her, as the case may be,

(b) the fact that the parent concerned has stated, in accordance with this Act, that he or she is not willing to be contacted by the relevant person, and

(c) the importance of the relevant person respecting the privacy rights of the parent and the preference of the parent referred to in paragraph (b).

Having listened to contributions from groups during the pre-legislative scrutiny, PLS, process, I understand that section 17(2)(c), in particular, and the fact that in an information session an adopted person will be told of the importance of respecting privacy rights was felt to be condescending and that the adopted person was being spoken down to. I hear that and we have sought to change it. In what we are bringing forward now, section 17(2)(a) remains the same, but we will delete section 17(2)(b) and section 17(2)(c). Instead of those, we will put in:

(b) the fact that— (i) the parent concerned has exercised his or her entitlement under section 38(11) to state that he or she is not willing to be contacted by the relevant person, and

(ii) the making of that statement by the parent constitutes an exercise by him or her of his or her right to privacy.

There is now no language proposed and the information session will not contain any language where the adopted person is told about the importance of respecting the parent's privacy rights. It is a further dilution of the information session. However, I can understand there was a concern that it was seen as paternalistic, particularly in the context of the designated person speaking to an adopted person. We have sought to improve and address that by the changes brought forward, recognising the importance that the information session has for so many people.