Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

It is a very well-intentioned amendment. To identify genetic illnesses at the earliest possible time in a child's life can have an amazing impact on the treatment and even the life expectancy of a child — that goes without saying. However, I am not inclined to accept the amendment for two reasons. One is that the health information Bill will deal with some of the issues. There are issues concerning whether one can access medical records of one's parents in the normal course of events, apart from adoption — for example, I cannot access my parent's medical records. That is a legal difficulty which would have to be overcome. It is a legal principle that persons are entitled to confidentiality in respect of medical records. However, I understand the health information Bill will build on existing data protection legislation which gives effect to the EU directive on data protection. The principles of this are well established nationally, especially in the case of what is termed sensitive personal information and personal health information. This obviously falls into the category contemplated by Senator Quinn and those legal difficulties must be overcome. Nevertheless, as Senator Healy Eames rightly pointed out, in the process of placing a child for adoption medical histories are obtained where possible. In practice, therefore, this happens already. Part of the work done with birth mothers concerns the relinquishing of this information. We already had this discussion with regard to cases in which a mother refuses to identify the father. Clearly we wish to calibrate this in such a way as to balance the rights of mothers and fathers with the need to get sensitive medical information that may help the child in the treatment of any genetically inherited illness.

Both in practice and in statute we have the right balance. However, I believe this will be visited on a statutory basis when the health information Bill comes before both Houses.