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

While it obviously is a happy ending in this case, the reason the woman concerned gave me permission to raise her case in this Chamber is that, sadly, there are thousands of others where the ending is not so happy. People have spent a lifetime searching only to find out perhaps that the parent had just recently died. This simply is not good enough. In September 2011, the Minister told me that the heads of the Bill on the new adopting and tracing legislation were close to completion and would be progressed fairly speedily. In July 2013, she told me that she hoped to bring the heads of the Bill as early as possible but the legislative programme states Members might get it in 2014. In September 2011, the Minister told me that the Sacred Heart files had been transferred to Glanmire and a system was in place to manage and help people to get the records. In September 2013, she told me that the 25,000 files had been transferred to Cork, that there was a significant demand to access these files and as a result, sadly, the HSE was not in a position to respond but that it was planning to reorganise its approach to dealing with the matter.

This is not good enough. This knowledge has been in the Government's hands for a long time. These are crimes that have been committed against people from whom their identities have been withheld. What I asked the Taoiseach for was not only a meeting. Some people who were illegally adopted recently met the Minister. What they want is action. They have proved that they can play a part in assisting to match people with their parents because of their own experience. Why not bring them to the heart of this matter and get them involved in sorting out what is demonstrably a crisis in people being able to access their files? I ask the Taoiseach again to bring them on board to deliver a solution to this torment that many women and their children have endured for decades.

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