Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House for the debate. I commend Senators Power, van Turnhout and Healy Eames on bringing this Bill forward. I am delighted the Minister will be supporting the motion and that we all will be supporting it. It is very important. I look forward to it going before the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children. It is a very important Bill. Movement on the issue of access to information for adopted people and their natural parents is something that is a long time coming - from successive Governments - and I impress on the Minister the frustration that has deepened year on year for individuals who are affected by this.

I am delighted to support the Bill and the fact that the Minister will also be supporting it and referring it to the Committee on Health and Children. I welcome the intention to finalise the scheme and the heads of Bill as soon as possible. I hope this can be achieved for the sake of the many thousands of people who at present and into the future want access to their information, essentially their identity.

I received dozens of e-mails, as I know all my colleagues have, over the last few weeks, from people whose lives have been touched by adoption. Reading through the thoughts of these people was eye-opening for me. I am grateful to the people who contacted me and shared their very personal experiences and their frustrations regarding the difficulty in accessing their information, particularly their original birth certificates. Access to a birth certificate is something we take for granted. I receive numerous e-mails highlighting the great difficulty adopted people have in accessing their birth certificates, often spending many years researching and travelling to find out more information about themselves. There was one particular remark in an e-mail from an adoptee that struck me. The individual stated, "I am thirty years of age and I do not know what weight I was when I was born". It is a very simple sentence but it is particularly poignant. From my own experience, my own children would ask me on what day they were born, what weight they were, what they did. It is something very personal and so small - it is only a small detail - but is something very important. This person further highlighted the embarrassment that is felt when asked for a medical history by a doctor, as they do not know it. The relationship of the natural parent and the child is a matter which should be decided between them, with the assistance of a third party if necessary. Access to vital documents and information such as birth certificates and medical records needs to be urgently addressed.

Another adoptee who contacted me stated that as an adopted person who has searched for his mother, he firmly believes that greater transparency is needed to aid people in the search for their natural families. He told me he found his mother through dogged determination and hours of looking through birth records and that this does not need to be the case. He told me people will find their families without this Bill but the way things are now, they are a recipe for heartache. He said people are made to feel like they are wrong to want to find their birth family and asked whether, at the end of the day, it is not a person's right as a human being to know where one comes from?

I would challenge anyone to not feel disappointed with the services we are currently providing for individuals across the spectrum in relation to adoption. No one should be made to feel like they are wrong for wanting to know about themselves and where they came from. We need to provide the support and services necessary to those women, children and siblings who are searching for each other and more information about themselves. In recent years, we have attempted to deal with the past in relation to the Magdalen laundries and, more recently, symphysiotomy. Those women who were sent to mother and baby homes and those children who were adopted from a mother and baby home should have the opportunity to avail of a service which would assist, within set parameters, with gathering information, tracing or communication. Equally, all people affected by adoption and seeking information should have similar access to such a service.

I wish to also mention Philomena Lee who is a person who has highlighted this issue more than any one in the last number of years. When the book and the film came out, it was a wonderful opportunity to open up the issue, particularly to younger generations who are maybe not as aware of adoption and things that have happened with adoption. I wish to publicly commend her for her courage and bravery in coming forward with her tragic story, which could so very easily have been avoided.

On a personal note, I know the joy that can be involved in finding your birth parents. It happened a few years ago to a very good friend of mine who I never knew was adopted and who himself did not know until both his parents died. It was a very sad story where the mother had her son at a very young age. Her parents put her straight into a mother and baby home. Several years later she married the father of the child. They went on to have three other children, one of whom - his sister - unfortunately died when she was approximately 14 years of age. Through the change in recent years, and years and years of searching for each other, they did find each other. This brought joy, absolute joy, to this person. They were lucky unlike the person Senator Henry mentioned. There is joy in being able to find out one has siblings and of being able to find one's mother and father.

It is unbelievable. Everybody should have the opportunity to find out who they are.