Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome this amendment. It provides for a more inclusive approach, which is very welcome. So much of the Bill is welcome, and so many of the amendments are welcome. We have welcomed all the Minister's amendments, I believe. There is just the one sticking point left, namely, the provision in section 17. It is a very significant difficulty for us. This is a Bill that my party and I really want to support. Undoubtedly, it will result in considerable progress regarding the rights of adopted persons to know their own identity and access the sort of birth information that is routinely available to the adopted persons in other jurisdictions.

Our concern, mentioned in our pre-legislative scrutiny report, is that Ireland will remain an outlier if, through what section 17 proposes, we continue to place a condition on access to birth information, even for a small category of adopted persons. If there could be some movement on this between now and the passage of the Bill in the Seanad, it would be really welcome. I do not want to have to oppose the Bill at all because it is so welcome. I commend the Minister and his officials on the enormous progress made. As I said earlier and on Committee Stage, I am so aware of the enormous difficulties we have had in trying to get to this stage with the legislation. There have been many iterations of the Attorney Generals' advice on this over the years. There is just this one final hurdle; so many others have been cleared. While there has been so much goodwill and meeting of minds on changes that improved the Bill greatly, and while so many have had an input, including all the witnesses who gave evidence to the joint committee, particularly Professor Conor O'Mahony, and the Minster's officials and the Attorney General, there is just the one remaining sticking point. It is really a vestige of a dated culture. As the Minister put it himself, there was a "restrict, not release" culture that always saw privacy rights trumping identity rights and that saw distrust of women and children. We all know that culture should be long gone and we do not want to see any more vestiges of it in our legislation.

For us, the sticking point concerning the mandatory information session still remains. It retains too much of the past culture in the Bill. It does not fit. Given the many improvements to the Bill since we began debating it, including amendment No. 73 and those ministerial amendments we have just agreed to, section 17 will come to be seen as an outlier. Indeed, it could well form the basis of litigation by those adopted persons in that small category to which I have referred, whose birth parents, as was their right, indicated a no-contact preference. An adopted person in that scenario who does not engage in the mandatory information session will not then have access under this legislation to his or her birth information. Therefore, such adoptees may well see it as discriminatory against them. That discrimination is built into the Bill, and that is what we are objecting to. I realise we have had an opportunity to debate it; however, in light of the other significantly progressive and welcome amendments, it stands out as an obstacle to supporting the Bill in its entirety.

See this speech in context