David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Committee Stage of the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill 2016 has been deferred and I want to raise a number of concerns relating to the Government's treatment of adopted people in the context of the Bill. Last week, the Minister, Deputy Zappone, told Senators that she met advocacy groups, lawyers and social workers only the night before to listen to their views on controversial amendments to the Bill. Adoptees and their advocates were not consulted in the drafting of any of the amendments or before they were circulated to Members. It is not enough just to listen to and hear arguments against limiting adoptees' rights to their own information. The Government must now reshape the legislation. The Minister has committed to delivering a culture of transparency and openness for adoptees but that is not what the Bill provides. The Adoption Rights Alliance warned that if the legislation proceeds as it is, the Minister will facilitate an egregious step backwards in the era of progressive social change. Information and contact are two completely different matters and the balancing of rights arguments behind which the Government and Attorney General have hidden are ill-placed and ill-judged. Why, in 2019, is the State's instinctive response to issues such as this still to be secretive and paternalistic? How does the Government intend to proceed with the legislation, given that it has been deferred? Will the provisions of the Bill dealing with access to information be revised and when will this be completed?

See this speech in context