Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It has taken some time but I am glad that, finally, the Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022 is before Dáil Éireann. This legislation has been long awaited by many people. Over many years there have been repeated attempts to draft legislation to provide adopted people with the right to key information about their birth situation.

I am a member of the Oireachtas committee which examined this legislation and met over many months with stakeholder groups. It is important to pay tribute to these groups and the individuals they represent. Their stories are personal and unique but there is a commonality of pain, hurt and emptiness of not knowing one's self. I hope our committee has been empathetic to their pain and that Dáil and Seanad Éireann move as quickly as possible to enact legislation that will, to some small extent, help to ease that pain.

The urgent need to enact the Birth Information and Tracing Bill has been recognised by all political parties, stakeholder groups and professionals working in the area and the legislation has been progressed as a matter of priority by the Government. The Bill, which I hope will be enacted, will ensure the full release on application of birth certificates and birth, early life care and medical information for adopted persons, people who were boarded out, nursed out, subject to illegal birth registration or who resided in mother and baby or county home institutions when they were children.

On top of all of this, the Bill seeks to establish a statutory tracing service and statutory contact preference register and to provide for the safeguarding of adoption and related records. Furthermore, it addresses the issues facing people who were the subject of an illegal birth registration. The Bill will provide a legal mechanism for provision of an accurate birth registration to affected individuals while remaining mindful of their current identity.

Following engagement with stakeholders, the Bill has been significantly enhanced in a number of areas. When a parent has indicated a no-contact preference, this will be conveyed to the person applying for the birth information. This will now be done by means of a short, sensitive and user-friendly telephone call to the applicant seeking information and will no longer require a face-to-face meeting with a social worker. Information will then be released to the applicant in all cases.

The Bill also includes some major new provisions that allow access to records by next of kin. These were not included in the original heads of Bill so that is an important matter taken on vis-à-visthe consultation with stakeholders.

The Birth Information and Tracing Bill is fully congruent with the Constitution and GDPR obligations of our State and strengthens existing rights to information. The Bill does not prevent a person from making a subject access request under GDPR or from receiving information beyond the categories in the legislation.

Leaving legislation aside for a moment, I will speak on the substantive matter of mother and baby homes. Every child in the world is perfect at the time of birth and perfectly deserving of the love and affection of parents, extended family and the State. For too many decades, the State, choked by a holier-than-thou and "What will the neighbours and clergy think?" attitude, did not live by the cherish all the children of the nation equally slogan of the 1916 Proclamation. Instead, society, church and State were complicit ideologues for the "born out of wedlock" and "living in sin" outlook and, perhaps most disgusting of all, the term "bastard", which has thankfully left public discourse. These outlooks have caused immeasurable pain and torn families apart for far too long. I hope the legislation before us can heal some wounds and help people find out who mum and dad truly were.

I had a conversation with a woman in my constituency some months ago. It came up casually in our conversation that I was heading home that evening for some cake and a small party for my daughter's birthday. With deeply sad eyes, the woman told me that, while most people look forward to their birthday, she finds hers the most painful day of each year because it reminds her that part of her identity and sense of self is not there. I believe heart and soul that this legislation will to a large extent heal her pain and that of many others.

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