Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We will discuss the scoping exercise this afternoon and I am sure every Member's input will stress the urgency. In the interim, however, there are older and vulnerable people who, in some instances, do not have months or years to wait for that process. In this context the expertise of a person such as Sharon Lawless, who produced "Adoption Stories" for TV3, is important. People like her, with few resources but with an open heart and a will to find answers through DNA testing and so on, have been able to give people answers when they were told there was no information to be had in other quarters. We need to tap into resources such as DNA. Mandatory counselling should be provided to support people in this process and a method to reach out to affected people and those who will be affected must be put in place early on in the process. We should not wait for that. It requires not just urgency; it requires a beefing up of resources in those areas as well as in record searching and in extending the scope. It is incumbent on all of us to get behind this to make sure the resources are delivered for that.

See this speech in context