Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Chair. There is a period where there is an opportunity to register a non-contact preference, which is set as three months. I noted in one of the submissions a desire that this would be for much longer. My fear, however, is that the period we establish is a period for which there would be a stay on the right to access information. I would welcome a comment on the effects of lengthening that period.

We talked about the records being in one place and that it would be better if they were under one roof. I understand that in setting out the heads, a conscious choice was made to first provide the right of access and then over the course of time gather the information separate to that, with a right of access as quickly as possible. It was considered that this was the best way to discharge the enormous obligation and entitlement for access to personal information. Perhaps Ms Mugan could answer my question on this. How long would it take to gather everything in one place? What sort of a trade-off would we have to make on that?

My third question is on counselling. Mr. Gloster referred to the counselling by Barnardos, which has been a success, and most certainly I have heard that. I have also heard, however, from people who have had the experience of finding out that everything about their identity was incorrect and that they were obliged to go to the Barnardos service. It is called "family counselling". In light of the fact that these are people who have discovered, perhaps late in life, that the family they thought they had was not their family, from what is written and documented, they found this terribly insensitive. Perhaps we need to apply this going forward and we need specialists who do not use the words "family" in their title. Perhaps we need a bespoke counselling service that deals with attachment and trauma, the consequences of the person's attachment, and what happens when the person finds that his or her lifelong attachment has been the subject of misinformation, at its kindest.