Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What we in this House need to understand is a sense of deep loss that a person experiences when they cannot access their own records. There is a huge loss, a feeling of not being a whole person, that they constantly carry inside them. We have all been very struck by the sense of belonging that a person gets when they access their own records. The right to identity is a fundamental human right. All you need to do is talk to adopted people to understand how deeply they care about this. This right is recognised internationally. Many countries have for centuries recognised an adopted person's right to access to their birth certificates and adoption records. Successive Government Bills have tried and failed fundamentally to correct this. I respect the Minister's attempt to rectify this, however, the argument about striking a balance is not the issue. The issue is the right of any individual to access their full records as a principle of respect and the right to know who they are. No one should hold the authority to block or deny this. Disappointingly the Information and Tracing Bill falls short of this principle. It is not easy to share your story. It is not easy to retell the hurtful and sometimes harrowing and traumatic experiences yet that is what some many adoptee's mothers, survivors and their advocates have painfully done for years. In order to provide the information and evidence needed for the Government to produce legislation that can right these past wrongs, the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth of which my colleague and long-time activist on this issue, Deputy Funchion is Chair, made 83 recommendation on this legislation after several long and difficult hearings. How many of these recommendations were taken on board? Why were they not listened to?

Take the red-line issue of the mandatory information session, effectively treating people differently, as if they were children. We know that this issue alone has caused deep resentment and hurt among adoptees, parents and survivors. These are very serious issues which are being raised about the Bill, and full compliance with GDPR and other legislation, leading to real human rights concerns over why adopted persons are treated differently in Ireland compared to most of our European counterparts when looking for access to their private records.

I hope that the Minister and the Government will realise that this legislation does not strike a balance. Serious amendments are needed on Committee Stage. We need to listen to the people finally who have waited far too long to be respected and treated with dignity.

We owe it to them, to their stories and their stolen years, to finally uphold their human rights. These are their very fundamental rights to discover their own identity and restore their confidence in a system that has let them down so many times.

See this speech in context