Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy for his questions. As I said, the final draft of the Bill will be different. These are the heads of the Bill and there will be improvements. The final draft of the Bill will provide for the provision of counselling supports for those who were adopted, those subjected to illegal birth registration and those mothers and parents who seek to use the processes provided for in this proposed Bill. The initial drafts contained more clarity for mothers, but there will be provision for supports for everybody.

Deputy Ward asked about active encouragement. I am a little wary about that. We will make it known that these supports are available but it is for mothers and adopted people to make their decisions regarding whether they use such supports. Some adopted people would not like to feel they are being funnelled into using a service that they do not want to use. These supports will be well advertised but not in a directive way. We will let people know the supports exist.

Tusla will provide the counselling. The Deputy is entirely right to raise the issue of resources in this regard. We are conscious that this legislation and what it entails will require the provision of significant additional resources for Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland. I reiterate that I met representatives of both those bodies. We spoke about numbers of additional staff and the type of staff needed. As I said, this service will not only involve social workers, particularly the tracing element. It may also involve genealogists to assist with the tracing issue. A mix of skills will be brought together to support that aspect of the service. There will, however, be a resourced counselling service for people seeking to avail of the provisions in this legislation and it will be provided by Tusla.

Other speakers also raised the NCS. It provides a good counselling service. There is a discrete pathway into the service for survivors of these institutions. Regarding what Deputy Murnane O'Connor said, the number of people who have used the service so far - 158 - is not huge. We will consider how we can better advertise the existence of the service.