David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the three Senators who introduced the Bill as well as those who have contributed to the debate so far. I also welcome the Minister.

Sinn Féin welcomes this Bill and we are happy to support it. We agree with the sentiments of the Adoption Rights Alliance that it represents an important first step towards equality for adopted people in Ireland. For far too long, the Irish State and successive Governments and religious institutions have colluded to deny these people their rights as both children and adults.

In the past three years, we have heard in this House and in the Dáil horrendous stories of decades of neglect and abuse and the denial of the most basic of rights to single women and their children while in the so-called care of the various religious orders and the State. The mother and baby homes, the Magdalen laundries, orphanages and industrial schools brought together a system of forced labour, extreme violence, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse in a system that had more in common with gulags and concentration camps than with the care and well-being of women and children. As a nation and a State, we have only just begun to come to terms with the legacy of this awful time. Therefore, there is an onus on all of us, but especially on legislators, to ensure that people whose human rights have thus far been denied them as a result of this system are now guaranteed.

It is in this context that I welcome today's legislation which ensures that adopted people will from here on have the same rights as everyone else to access their birth certificates and other personal records once they reach 18 years of age. The Bill also assists adopted people and their birth parents to exchange contact details if they so wish. It also ensures the exchange of information from birth parents to their children regarding their family medical history.

The Bill establishes a central record under the auspices of the adoption authority where all records pertaining to adoption in Ireland from agencies, religious congregations, mother and baby homes, and so forth, will now be held. This is a very important practical step, but it is also hugely symbolic. We know, for example, that the gulag system was based on secrecy, shame and on state and institutional abuse of the most basic human rights of women and their children. A central feature of the entire system was a denial of people's humanity. Official records matter and they are more than just a piece of paper. At a very fundamental level, they acknowledge a person's existence. They give people a past and a sense of connectedness to a family history. In a very human sense, people have a lineage and are not all alone in the world. Therefore, I support this Bill.

There are a number of flaws in the Bill which have been articulated and I would accept that. That is what Committee Stage is about. If we feel the thrust of the Bill, the logic of the Bill, is important and that it is one that should be pursued, we should support it. Any difficulties we have with the Bill, including from the Government's side, can be addressed on Committee Stage. Therefore, I appeal to the Government to accept the Bill and to move it along. If the Government has concerns, as Sinn Féin does, let us use Committee Stage to address those concerns. However, let us support this Bill today and send out a message to those people who have been abused and let down by the State that we are on their side and that we will ensure that the mistakes of the past are corrected as best we can.