Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I am not suggesting that a father has any particular rights in the case of rape or in the case where he went out of the mother's life the day after conception. The balance of the rights in this section and in later sections, to which my further amendments relate, treat a child's right to have a father as something trivial and that is not available to all children. That is fundamentally wrong. I am aware Deputy Lynch is neutral in this respect in the context of her role as Acting Chairman but she produced a Bill on a related matter.

I repeat my earlier point that in 20 years time we will probably look back and ask ourselves what were we doing when we ignored fatherhood to the extent that we have did in practices at this time . That is very much the case in this Bill. I would like the Minister of State to take this point seriously.

Having listened to Deputy Shatter and having regard to the issues we have been teasing out this afternoon and that we teased out in committee, this Bill on coming into law will have to be reviewed in the not too distant future to assess how it is working. There are a number of areas of serious concern that may well cause difficulty. I ask the Minister of State to consider that point. The first of my amendments in this grouping deals with the fact that a birth does not have to be registered in advance of adoption. Am I correct in that? If I am, that seems to be a serious omission in the Bill.

See this speech in context