Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Fundamentally, my Department and my officials have engaged in a huge amount of work to bring about that culture change, as demonstrated by this very substantial Bill that we have worked on and prioritised to bring about those changes. I have seen and I believe there is a culture change beginning in those organisations. If the Deputy does not accept my view she should, as a committee member, invite Mr. Bernard Gloster, the chief executive of the AAI and engage with him. I am extremely confident that those bodies are changing and that they see the need for change. I believe they will see themselves as being empowered by this legislation to change their approach to the release of information to people who were adopted and people who were the subject of illegal birth registrations. Change has to begin somewhere and I believe we are beginning it in our Department. When one looks at my Department's approach to subject access requests, for example, more than 500 people have received information from the archive of the Commission of Investigation following on from subject access requests. An issue came up about the release of medical information and we looked for a work-around. We brought in amending regulations that have addressed that issue. Now there is no question of going to a GP. We brought in regulations to do that. We could have held off because that is dealt with in this legislation but the principle of the barrier the statutory instrument from 1989 caused was offensive, it had to go, and we did change it. There is a culture change that is exhibited in Government and which is feeding through the agencies involved but it will be up to all of us, in Government and in Opposition, to police that and make sure it is being delivered on.

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