Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 323:

In page 48, to delete lines 17 and 18.

I will speak to this amendment briefly because it was not already discussed. In deleting this section, we are removing the restriction on people whose births were illegally registered before 31 December 1980. The general scheme of the Bill states an affected person is someone whose birth was illegally registered before 31 December 1970. How was this date arrived that? It seems arbitrary and flawed. Although the State is clearly aware these practices were not restricted to one agency or a single timeframe, instead of ensuring each and every affected person can access his or her information in the Bill, it merely changed the original cut-off from 1970 to 1980 instead of removing the time limit altogether. We feel strongly there should be no time limits on this.