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

In the course of today's debate, we have already had some discussion on the matter. This amendment would require the establishment of a central register for statutory declarations of guardianship. I have already gone into the details on the complexity of the establishment of such a register, which we do not have at present. I will make a number of points in this regard. I am concerned that it should not become or be perceived as a necessary step in the acquisition of guardianship. That is an important point to make. The existing statutory declaration mechanism to make certain parents guardians is readily accessible, has no cost and is straightforward.

As I indicated, I am already taking steps to ensure people are more aware of its availability to become guardians with no cost implication. It is particularly important that we should not make registration of the declaration compulsory because in any such situation there is a multi-step process and we do know from other experiences that it is possible for people not to complete the process. I would not want that to be the case. If we set up a system and there was a perception that failure to register a declaration could mean that a person would not be a guardian, it could have the entirely unintended consequence of making guardianship more difficult to obtain.

I believe such a centralised repository as proposed by Deputy Mac Lochlainn could have value and I understand why people recommend it and Treoir has raised it. Developing an appropriate solution will take time as further analysis is required. The Deputy will appreciate there are related issues such as security, data protection and data exchange and management. There are also financial implications. I must examine a wide range of issues to which the amendment gives rise. That will take time, but once we have had some consideration of the broad range of issues, I will establish a number of pilot projects in the coming months as the most appropriate means of testing the idea. That will involve inviting parents who have made statutory declarations to deposit copies of their declaration in an administratively operated repository as a traditional security mechanism. I will put such a pilot project in place. We will get the agreement of parents who have made statutory declarations to examine the issues around it and to see how the process has worked. I will report on the outcome of the pilot project to see what further steps may be required.

On that basis, I ask the Deputy not to press the amendment. I will put a pilot project in place and see what range of issues arise because it is not simply a question of saying we will establish such a register and doing it. The various issues to which I referred come into play. It has not been done previously. I am sure other Deputies share my surprise that there has not been an attempt to do this previously or to keep such records. I expect one of the reasons is due to the huge complexity involved, the changes in guardianship the courts oversee daily, and the difficulty of the co-ordination of all that material.

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