Results 21-35 of 35 for at segment:8268495

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: I disagree with the amendments for the following reasons. In the apology the Minister gave to those affected, in this House, I did speak about the fact that illegality has an implication of criminality and that there needs to be a mechanism for assessment of that. On that basis, and following other discussions I have had around this, when the file is reviewed by the specialist entities that...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: In terms of the record, again the danger might be that it is a record of vaccination, but we can come back to vaccination trials on Report Stage. There is something different in terms of the records of vaccine trials versus the records of routine vaccinations. That might need elaboration, but I am not going to press the amendment. Because it is such an interlocking Bill, there are...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I wish to address what was done by people, such as in the example of St. Patrick’s Guild. We know it was illegal. It has already been clearly determined and identified as illegal. Under this legislation, however, a person who wishes to access their records will be describing this illegal act as being "incorrect", meaning "false or misleading". I would point out that we are putting...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: To follow-up on Senator Boyhan's point, it relates to some of the earlier amendments we discussed. There is a difference between vaccination and the involvement in vaccine trials. Information that a person was vaccinated, be that as part of a trial or part of a medical procedure, is not itself the same as that information in respect of a process of exploitation, effectively, that the person...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Victor Boyhan: I will be brief. We have a lot of work ahead of us this afternoon. I will follow on from Senator Higgins's point, especially in respect of amendments Nos. 56 and 57. In the context of all this, we have to remember there is perhaps not as much information held as we might like to think or wish for. I will share some experiences. As I said to the Minister the other day, I am one of seven...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank Senator Boyhan for his comments. I, too, welcome this opportunity, which is longer perhaps in this House than the Committee Stage was in the other House. It is useful to tease through the issues. Specifically on Senator Higgins's point on using the word "or", I confirm that I specifically raised the issue of looking at "or" rather than having a pure substitution. Again, having...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Roderic O'Gorman: I cannot support amendment No. 65, which seeks to provide for an adoptive parent to apply for medical information for his or her adoptive child where that child is under 16 years of age. It seeks to alter the process through which the release of third-party medical information is provided. This issue is one that was subject to detailed consultations between us, the Office of the...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I thank the Minister. I am glad. I recognise the change on Report Stage in the Dáil that relates to amendments Nos. 1 and 2. In light of that, I am going to consider the legislation again to determine whether I feel it satisfies what I am seeking to achieve in amendments Nos. 1 and 2. I believe it may. In that context, I will not press the amendments but reserve the right to...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Senator. At all times in the work that has been ongoing on the Bill, including prior to the initial drafting of the general scheme, the detailed work that took place during pre-legislative scrutiny and the detailed Committee and Report Stages in Dáil Éireann, we have sought to clarify and strengthen the definitions contained in the legislation to ensure that as wide a...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Victor Boyhan: I will pick up on some of the comments that have been made in the debate across the House. We can have "incorrect" and we can have "illegal". I think that is a good proposition. I do not think the terms are mutually exclusive. I think that is important. We need to be careful here. We are legislators and we are dealing with this Bill, but there are many hundreds of people listening in,...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Roderic O'Gorman: This is similar to the previous discussion. Section 11 relates to the "Relevant body to provide early life, care information or incorrect birth registration information on application by relevant person aged 18 years or over". Subsection (2) states that, subject to subsection (3), a relevant body on application to it made under this section "shall, to the extent that it is practicable to do...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 1: In page 8, line 15, after “State” to insert “and placed for adoption outside the State”. In the context of amendments Nos. 1 and 2, the concern is that, as currently constructed in the Bill, the definition of "adopted person" under the section seems to only include persons whose adoptions were facilitated by the Adoption Board, a...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank all of the Senators for their engagement on this point. I will seek to address all that was said. First, I wish to respond to Senator Warfield's comment that some people who are illegally adopted have no rights under this Bill. As Senator Seery Kearney said, that is just wrong. The very centre of Parts 8 and 9 is about dealing with the situation of those who were the subject of...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It is a very large group and they are quite different topics. I find the Minister's response unacceptable. The definition of "genetic relative", and the Minister did not address the question, includes full-blood or half-blood relative. That is not a very wide definition. I do not understand why there is still this lingering theme of how much it can be shut down. It is still there in that...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Roderic O'Gorman: Senator Boyhan raised the important point of the information about vaccine trials that were done and, as we know now, done without consent and often in breach of what were the medical guidelines of the time, which I believe were the Nuremberg guidelines. It is a source of great concern for many people who were in mother and baby or county home institutions or other institutions. As Senator...