Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming forward with the legislation, which is welcome. I am involved with one family that is adopting from Russia so know that the process takes time. The family was lucky because the process had been completed prior to October 2012. It is important to introduce amending legislation that will support families who have worked hard to adopt only to have their efforts frustrated. Administration of the process takes time and the legislation is welcome.

A number of Members referred to the issue of adoption records and how important it is to maintain them. Many records are being transferred and now they will have one assembly point which is important.

Records are also interesting in terms of foster care. I am aware of a case where two people were put into foster care many years ago, one woman is now 79 years old and the other woman is 71 years old. It took a daughter of the 71-year old woman two years to find her mother's records so that she could track down family. The sad part is that I knew both of the women for over 25 years but never knew they were connected. Eventually they met when one was 71 years and the other was 79 years. Both women had been put into foster care at a very young age. I was surprised that it took so long for a child of one of the women to get records in order to trace family.

Another side of the story was that one woman was involved in the Fine Gael party and the other was involved in Fianna Fáil. If both women had been involved in the same political party they might have met at an earlier date. I knew both of them because they lived in different parts of my constituency but they never knew that they were connected until the age I stated. The legislation raised the issue of the availability of records for adopted people. We should also examine the issue of records being available to people who were placed in foster care. We must not forget about them.

Many people were put into foster care 45 or 50 years ago. I am not too sure how the record-keeping process was dealt with after that. We should try to give assistance to families in that area as well. It is something we should look at. I thank the Minister again for bringing this legislation forward and for dealing with this area in an expeditious manner. It is important that we put this legislation through.