Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 2 November 2021

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

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

Dr. Fred Logue:

I will put it this way. The only barrier I ever hear is I. O'T. v. B., which is a legal barrier. Under the GDPR, the barrier to exercising one's rights must be a practical one, as in something bad will happen to somebody else if a person exercises his or her rights. People cannot just throw out the argument that I. O'T. v. B. is the reason. There is not actually a legal barrier. If nobody can come up with a practical barrier, we should pass legislation that provides that everybody can have access to his or her own file. It could be on one page and that would be the end of it.