Mr. Bernard Gloster:

The observation I was making was that the provision across the heads of Bill as drafted makes it a statutory obligation for Tusla to provide counselling support for people in respect of interaction with the contact preference register. Later on, it makes it a possibility to provide it to all other people, particularly those seeking or receiving access to their birth identity or early life information. We are saying that, based on the needs each person might identify for him or herself, we or some other organisation should have a statutory duty to provide it if requested.

The second point I attempted to allude to was the potential need for a slightly different consideration for people between the ages of 16 and 18. They are in different circumstances. Mr. O'Mahony referenced people from 12 up. I do not disagree with that but there is a duty of care requirement for children receiving specific types of information.

The piece about the quality of the record was slightly different. Counselling is helpful in that situation as much as any but counselling should be provided for all who require it. If time allows and members want us go into more detail on the quantity-quality issue we were debating, my colleagues can do that. We are concerned about expectation. When people hear Tusla has 70,000 records, some will have the perception that Tusla has 70,00 comprehensive details with all the records, details, information and clarification. It might be much less than that. Depending on where and what part of history they came from and how they were compiled, there could be accuracy issues. For example, an accuracy issue arose, evidenced in the RTÉ Investigates programme "Who Am I?", regarding two people being connected to each other who were subsequently found not to be related. That is perhaps an extreme example but that is the danger with inaccurate and historical records.