Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy is aware, this Bill passed Second Stage in the Seanad. I will be bringing the Bill back to the Seanad soon and intend to have it passed by both Houses by the end of this session.

As I am sure the Deputy is aware, the Bill seeks to balance the rights to identity and to privacy, which sometimes conflict with one another. Given the constitutional context, striking the balance between those rights is proving to be challenging. Members of the Oireachtas, stakeholders and lobby groups have expressed concerns about those specific aspects of the Bill which seek to achieve that balance. In particular, the requirement for adopted people to sign an undertaking declaring that they would not contact their birth parent was considered by some to be offensive to adopted people.

Having listened to these concerns, I engaged again with the Office of the Attorney General seeking to revisit the privacy provisions and to strengthen the right to identity. I recently secured Government approval to draft amendments to revise these provisions in the Bill. The revised scheme will seek to remove the requirement to sign an undertaking. It will also provide people applying for birth information with the opportunity to make their case about why this should be released, in circumstances where its release is being opposed by a birth parent. My officials are actively working on drafting the necessary amendments, with the assistance of the Attorney General’s office.

I am conscious of the delay with progressing the Bill. It has been a long and arduous legislative journey but new draft legislation was announced by the Deputy's colleague, the former Minister, Mary Hanafin, in May 2001. Eighteen years later, I am confident that this revision will have a positive impact on access to birth information and will be an improvement on the existing provisions in the Bill but it will only finally succeed if Members of the Oireachtas support it. It reflects my sincere efforts to tilt the balance more strongly in favour of applicants’ right to identity and access to birth information, while maintaining protections for a small cohort of potentially vulnerable birth parents.

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