Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

It is important, partly in light of Deputy Wallace's comment and partly because of the delay, that measures are put in place between now and the introduction of the legislation to protect the records that are out there. There is nothing in law to require or compel people to hand over private records. We are totally reliant on the goodwill of the individual. As Deputy Wallace said, the man in this instance is a good person. He still has the records. He could quite easily have thrown them all into the bin. Potentially, the identities of hundreds of people could have gone into the bin as well. It is incredibly serious. It is hard to see how this could be an isolated incident. I ask the Minister to deal with it.

It is regrettable that the Bill is still being worked on. We thought we would have seen it before now. I would be concerned about giving a central role to the Adoption Authority of Ireland. Questions have been raised by some of the adoption rights organisations about the functioning of the authority. If I understand the Minister correctly, it might not be given all of the files but it will be given responsibility for them. I wonder how that fits in with the present situation. The HSE has collected all the files in Glanmire. If I recall correctly my dealings with staff last year, they do not have the resources to do anything with those files. There is nobody to help someone who comes to look for information. Nobody is working to arrange them in a presentable way that would help people to find their identities. Are there any plans to deal with the backlog from a staffing point of view?

See this speech in context