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

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 3, lines 13 and 14, to delete all words from and including “and” in line 13 down to and including line 14 and substitute the following:

“, the Adoption Act 2010, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014, the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022; and to provide for related matters.”.

I note the motion was debated earlier on these amendments and they are being recommitted.

On Committee Stage, I noted my intention to bring these amendments to the Adoption Act 2010 to alter the quorum requirements for meetings of the board of the Adoption Authority of Ireland, AAI, in order to provide greater flexibility in the context of the board members who may form a quorum and thereby ensuring that adoption orders will be made. I am also amending the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 to enable Tusla or the AAI to undertake a trace or verification in situations where the person applying cannot provide supporting evidence a parent named on a birth certificate is deceased.

On amendment No. 32, the board of the AAI consists of seven members, including the chair, deputy chair and two members with social work experience. The quorum of the board is provided for in section 106 of the Adoption Act 2010. Current legislative requirements mean that a quorum consists of the chair or deputy chair and two ordinary members, one of whom must be one of the two social workers on the board. The way the Adoption Act 2010 is written, when the chair is in attendance, the deputy chair does not count towards the two ordinary members required. In addition, the existing quorum requirement puts a considerable burden on the two ordinary members of the board with social work experience. The AAI has advised that the quorum requirement set out in the Act is onerous, especially in the context of an increasing number of board meetings and an increasing requirement for board meetings at very short notice. The authority has advised of a serious risk to the effect that the specific constraints set out in the Act mean the board will not be able to meet and, therefore, that adoption orders will not be made. This is a particular issue because of the growing number of children aged 17 years being adopted from long-term foster care and board meetings being required at short notice. The proposed amendment to the Act will provide that the quorum for a meeting of the board will be the chair or deputy chair and two other members, one of whom may be the deputy chair in circumstances where the chair is presiding. This proposal offers greater flexibility in the board members who may form a quorum along with the chair by allowing the deputy chair to be recognised as one of those members and removing the requirement one of the two board members must have social work experience.

Amendment No. 35 relates to the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022, which became law earlier this year. The Act provides for the release of identity information to a person who was adopted, nursed out or boarded out, who was subject to an illegal birth registration or who resided in a mother and baby home or county home institution as a child, known as a relevant person. Equally importantly, it provides for the release of information to a relative of a relevant person in the scenario where that individual is deceased. The Act provides for the release of information to their child, and thereby ensures identity information relevant to their children is available to them. It also provides for the release of information to the next of kin of persons who died as a child in a mother and baby or county home institution. In order to provide for the release of this information, the Act requires the parent named on the birth certificate also be deceased. This amendment will enable Tusla or the AAI to undertake a trace for verification in situations where the person applying cannot provide supporting evidence to that effect. It will support the primary purposed of the Act, namely, to ensure the release of information in all cases where it is available.

Amendment No. 5 is a technical amendment to add references to these amendments to the Long Title of the Bill.

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