Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is absolutely no question of stonewalling in this regard. I recognise the importance of this legislation for the many people who are seeking access to more information. As the Deputy knows, many people have found a variety of ways of accessing information themselves. That does not make it less important for us to put the right statutory framework in place. That is what I am trying to do in the information and tracing Bill.

I have met Susan Lohan and others. I recently met some women and men who are in the situation described by Deputy Wallace. Those who said when a child was being adopted that certain people were the child's parents, even though they were not, engaged in illegal and criminal activity. It is an extraordinarily difficult situation for the people concerned as they try to trace their parents and get more information about their origins. It is a very complex situation for them.

The complexity is precisely what I have described to the Deputy. We must determine how far the legislation can go in giving a person who has been adopted a statutory right to seek information about his or her origins, given the constitutional provisions we have in relation to privacy. The Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Office of the Attorney General are working on just how far the legislation can go in meeting that precise legal challenge, in light of the 1988 case that was mentioned earlier. The approach that was laid down in that case is the constitutional position at present. I think the Deputy is very familiar with it. That is the situation.

I will provide for the Adoption Authority of Ireland to dispense with the birth parent's right to consent in certain circumstances. A range of circumstances in which the authority can dispense with the consent of the parent will be outlined in the legislation. The authority will need to have regard to a range of criteria, some of which were mentioned in the 1988 case, such as the circumstances giving rise to the birth parent placing the child for adoption, the present circumstances of the birth parent, the effect on the birth parent of the disclosure of his or her identity to the adopted person, the attitude of the birth parent to the disclosure of his or her identity to the adopted person and the ages of the parties. I hope to include a range of criteria that will ensure the approach is more flexible than the current approach. It has to be within the bounds of the constitutional position.

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