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

Thank you.

We do trust women. That is why in every situation where this Bill is used, the full information will be provided to a woman, or any adopted person, or any person subjected to an illegal birth registration. All of the information about their parent, their mother, will be released to them. That is why this legislation is so significant. That is why this legislation represents such a change. We trust people so we issue them the information in every situation under the process set out within this legislation.

Deputy Bacik asked a question and I believe I answered it on Committee Stage. If someone decides not to use the process set out in this legislation, they may use the GDPR process. They have the right to do that. GDPR will probably give them much of what is here, maybe all of what is here, whereas this legislation gives them the absolute right in every circumstance to the full information. GDPR brings us back to the place where we do not want to be, where the data controller in each individual situation weighs the rights of the parent with the rights of the adopted person and makes a judgment call in every situation. That is what we want to move away from; and that is what we move away from with this legislation. Using this legislation, everyone in every circumstance will get full access to their information.

Again, sometimes I think there is no recognition of the stakes here. What we are doing is a very significant restriction of the privacy rights of the parent in these situations. It is right that we do it. We need to do it to vindicate the right to identity. However, like it or not, we have a system in this country where, when the Oireachtas restricts the fundamental rights of certain citizens, the courts have a right to adjudicate whether that restriction was done correctly and whether it was done proportionately. We know from the history of this area that it is an area that is litigated, and people feel so strongly about their desire not to be revealed that they have taken litigation before. We have gone with the alternative to the Attorney General and we have discussed that. The legal advice I have received is that the mechanism proposed here is the greatest restriction on the privacy rights that we can allow for without a risk of unconstitutionality.

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