Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 28 September 2021

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

General Scheme of the Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2021: Discussion (Resumed)

Photo of Roderic O'GormanRoderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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This Bill is all about providing people with clear and guaranteed access to their care information and providing that access for the first time.

The really important issue of the next of kin has come up in many of the submissions that have come before this committee. We are engaging with the Attorney General's office and with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel on what provisions can be provided with respect to access for various categories of next of kin. As Deputy Cairns said, under the legislation at the moment, we are proposing to tell people whether they had siblings - and if they had siblings, how many and what their gender was - but we are not proposing to provide names or direct information. I am aware that when the Data Protection Commission, DPC, made its submission, it flagged that there is an issue again in terms a balancing of rights because the name of a sibling is his or her private information. We cannot be sure that the sibling will want his or her identity revealed. I think the DPC said this would need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, as other issues have to be looked at under the GDPR. We are engaging with the Office of the Attorney General on what can be done there. We are also engaging with his office on what can be done for the child of an adopted person when that adopted person has died; for example, whether that child can find information about his or her grandmother. I am aware that this issue that has come up before this committee. It is an issue I have experienced myself in the engagement I have had with survivors over the last year. Again, we are engaging on those points so I do not have any absolute clarity on that today. As the Bill comes through and the final draft comes before the Dáil, we will have clarity there. Obviously that can be teased out further on Committee Stage.