Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Deputy Funchion on bringing the Bill forward. I welcome that the Minister is not opposing the Bill but, unfortunately, he is not supporting it either and is sitting on both sides of the fence.

What this Bill does, and why it is so important, is that it would immediately provide access to birth certificates for adopted people in the short term before comprehensive information and tracing legislation is brought forward by the Government. This is so important because the history of adoption in Ireland is fraught with decades of State-initiated interference where it operated a closed, secret system that attempted to erase the identities of thousands of people who were adopted.

Everybody is entitled to their information but here we are in 2021, heading to 2022, and we are still talking about people's rights. One reason this Bill is important is that Tusla still is making it extremely complicated for survivors in this regard. I spoke to some survivors over the past weekend. It is downright cheek on Tusla's part to ring survivors on the phone to tell them it is aware they asked for their information and that while it cannot give it to them, it can summarise that information and give it to them over the phone. This is about doing the right thing but while we have been debating this and the other six or seven reports over the years, it is still ignoring the wishes and the rights of people. I put it to the Minister that it is extremely disingenuous that Tusla is not only making it difficult, it is making it impossible, for survivors to get their rights. I had a little conversation with the Minister outside to make him aware that the most important thing is that illegal adoptions did happen. I want this on the record. We have black and white proof that they did happen. This is why it is so important to get to the bottom of this.

I call on the Government and on all Deputies to support this Bill and to support everything as it goes on to Committee Stage. Those who need our support are the people outside of this House. These people have been absolutely and totally ignored by the State and by the powers that are supposed to help them. The agencies we are talking about here are supposed to be assisting them but are not. It makes me angry that we come in here, week in and week out, month in and month out, trying to do the right thing. These are human rights issues and yet we are still coming up with barriers because we are trying to do the right thing.

I appeal to the Minister to support the Bill when it goes to committee.

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