Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

Yes, five minutes each.

I urge all Deputies to support this straightforward legislation. I ask the Government side not only to not vote against it, but to vote with us, because this is too important an issue for the people who are facing this awful situation. I also commend Deputy Funchion, who introduced this Bill.

It is now 20 years since this legislation on adoption information and tracing was first announced and there has still been no action taken. Professor Conor O'Mahony, the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, commenting on the "RTÉ Investigates" programme, "Who am I?", said, "We need to enact comprehensive adoption-tracing legislation which would give adopted persons an unconditional right to access their birth and adoption records and we need to do that without any further delay." He went on to say:

Many adoption records are scattered around private agencies and adoption societies. If an adoption tracing system is to work effectively, the State needs to put in place the necessary legal and other measures to secure those records and ensure they are under the control of a centralised State entity so that people can easily access the records necessary to establish their identity.

"RTÉ Investigates" was yet more shocking evidence of the callous mistreatment of women and their babies to go alongside the Magdalen laundries, the mother and baby homes, the county homes and, in this instance, the illegal and criminal falsification of birth registration of children born to women outside of so-called "wedlock" - what a word. The Adoption Act 1952 made this practice illegal yet it continued for decades.

The programme showed elite and powerful individuals regarded themselves as above the law. One of these was Professor Éamon de Valera Jr., a high profile consultant gynaecologist at the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street. In one case, he facilitated the adoption of four children by one family. The adoptive mother feigned pregnancy and was called for a false prenatal appointment where the baby of a so-called "unmarried mother" was handed over merely days after its birth. He also arranged antenatal appointments for women who were not pregnant to maintain the impression that the child was her biological child. Registering a child falsely, as he did, of someone who is not their mother has been illegal since 1880. This has to be held to account somewhere along the line and it has to be done as soon as possible. There were probably thousands of these cases carried out by medical professionals, religious orders such as the misnamed Sisters of Charity and adoption agencies such as the St. Patrick's Guild.

Many of the children involved have only discovered in later life that they are not who they thought they were. They were celebrating their birthday on wrong dates. The trauma is unimaginable. The least we can do is that whatever can be done to help them fill in the blanks is done now without further delay.

The Minister has promised the heads of a Bill in three-to-four weeks and is in talks with the Attorney General. This is a process, with pre-legislative scrutiny etc. which will likely take months. A Bill is here now. The Minister can propose amendments on Committee Stage if he feels it is necessary. I urge support for the Bill. The people who need this have waited too long.

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