Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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4. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the steps he is taking to improve the operation of the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 in assisting relevant persons, as defined in the Act, in accessing personal information. [15561/23]

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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Despite concerns raised during discussions on the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 and the scepticism expressed by survivors, the Minister said it would provide a clear pathway for access to identity records for adopted people and others. However, survivors are encountering delays, barriers, and in some cases less information than they had been able to gather themselves previous to this legislation. What steps is the Minister talking to improve this situation?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 provides guaranteed access to birth and early life information where it exists, thereby addressing a decades-long historic injustice. The legislation provides a full and clear right of access to birth certificates, birth, early life, care, and medical information for all persons who were adopted, boarded out, the subject of an illegal birth registration, or who otherwise have questions in relation to their origins.

In this context, and the context of the historical denial of access to rights, there has been an initial surge of demand for services under the Act and everyone across all organisations involved is committed to responding to this demand as quickly as possible. As of Monday of this week, just over 7,500 applications for information have been received by either Tusla or the Adoption Authority of Ireland, AAI. These applications are in addition to the 3,500 applications made for tracing services since 3 October, and the more than 3,100 new preferences registered to the new statutory contact preference register.

To date, both Tusla and AAI have processed and completed almost 3,000 requests for information, and more are due for completion and issuing each day. In addition to information and tracing services, applications are continuing to be made to the contact preference register, and the Adoption Authority of Ireland has already successfully identified 215 matches for relatives for whom they are seeking to facilitate contact. Both agencies advise that they have reassigned additional staff members to work exclusively on the processing of applications and that they will continue to keep every person who is waiting for information informed about their particular application.

Officials from my Department continue to support and engage with both the AAI and Tusla in respect of the ongoing implementation of services under the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022. This is done via regular governance and oversight meetings with both bodies where fulfilment of birth information and tracing obligations forms a standing agenda item. This engagement also supports positive changes to the benefit of the persons affected by this legislation. This is most evident in the tracing for verification amendment I brought forward in the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022, which was directly prompted and informed by stakeholder experience.

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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The Minister said that as of last Monday, 7,526 applications for information have been received by Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland, as well as 3,489 applications made for tracing services. However, only 2,948 requests have been completed. The Minister said that like it was a good thing but that is kind of the problem because of the requests yet to be processed, does he know how many of them are waiting for longer than the statutory time period of one month, extendable to only three months under the Act? Does the Minister acknowledge that the delays are routinely breaching the Act? Most importantly, there are applicants who through their own work have accessed more information than this legislation provides them with. I refer to those who for maybe years or decades have gone about finding their own information through all these lengthy processes. This legislation came out and they requested their information but they got less than what they managed to find themselves. That is clear evidence that people are not getting all their information. What does that say about how the legislation is working and what it set out to achieve in the first place?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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If the Deputy wishes to draw a specific instance to my attention, where an individual has received less information, she can do that. I have always engaged with Deputies when they had concerns about information issues. I will not comment as I would like to see the information. If we can provide a resolution, we will do so.

In terms of the processing, there are delays which I know are deeply concerning for survivors, many of who waited for a long time. We added in those statutory timeframes on Committee Stage. We discussed it here and felt it was a good idea to add timeframes like in other pieces of access to information, such as freedom of information, FOI. At the start of this process, we saw a huge surge for access to information but we are processing those requests. As I said, just under 3,000 people have now received their information and we will continue to ensure resources are put in place across the two organisations so we can get through that backlog and back into a system where we are meeting the requests for information within the statutory timeframes.

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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I do not think the Minister said how many of the applications are waiting for longer than the statutory time period, but maybe I missed it. That was one of my questions. We all knew there was going to be thousands of applications when the Minister set out the timeframes for responses. People have been waiting for decades to access this really basic information about themselves. Every time I and other members of the committee called for adoptive people to be included in the mother and baby homes redress scheme, the Minister constantly cited the birth information and tracing system as the key issue they wanted. Yet the system is not meeting the standards set by the Minister, it is failing to meet the needs of illegally adopted people and, ultimately, it is not providing the justice the Minister set out to be the main form of redress. The Minister said that if there was a particular case I should bring it to his attention. I will do so but it is not one specific case. There are a lot of people who spent a long time going to great lengths to try to get their information. More than one person, several people, have told me the information they got back is not near the information they managed to painstakingly gather themselves. That leaves people feeling like the system is not giving them all their information, which is the whole purpose of it, that is, that people would get all of their information. We highlighted that at the committee. How would one know what specifically there is to find unless one had spent that time searching?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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If there are specific issues in terms of the accessibility of information, I can only act on them if I know what they are. There are many sources of information.

It may be that the information one of the people who has been engaging with the Deputy is from a source that is not covered by the birth information and tracing legislation. There could be a variety of reasons the information that person has received is different. I am happy we have acted already. We made an amendment through the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill to include more information. Recently, for example, the Justice For Magdalenes group has flagged an issue about some of the records from Magdalen institutions in private ownership. We are looking at the issue, and if necessary and if it will address the particular issue in question, we are prepared to bring forward legislative changes.

I believe the legislation is working. As I said, I have had correspondence from survivors who for the first time have received their birth certificates with their original names, having looked for those certificates for a long tine. I have received information from people who are happy with the processes under this legislation but if, as the Deputy has flagged, people are coming to her with clear questions, we are happy to address them. I am happy to take the issue out of the Chamber and address it then.