Averil Power (Independent) | Oireachtas source

At the start of this year, the Seanad passed the Adoption (Identity and Information) Bill proposed by me and seconded by Senator Jillian van Turnhout. The Bill passed the Seanad with unanimous support. It was also supported by groups representing adopted people and natural parents. In July, the Government indicated its intention to move this issue forward by bringing forward its own Bill. I gave that Government announcement a cautious welcome at the time. I said I was glad to see any progress on this issue, but I was concerned that the Government Bill might not be passed before the election.

I also expressed some concerns about aspects of that Bill, as did the Adoption Rights Alliance and the Irish First Mothers group. We were particularly concerned about two issues, namely, the statutory declaration that adopted people would be forced to sign before being given their birth certificates and the inclusion of an information veto provision, allowing that in some circumstances an adopted person could be refused the basic information in his or her birth certificate where so-called "compelling reasons" exist, although the heads of the Bill did not make it clear what exactly those might be.

The committee on health and children also looked at this issue recently. It listened to those concerns. It invited all the different groups in - the various groups representing adopted people and natural parents, Tusla, the Adoption Authority, lawyers like Fergus Ryan, who drafted my own Bill and Conor O'Mahony from University College Cork, who is an expert on this area - and very thoroughly considered all the issues involved. After that, the committee also recommended changes on those two areas I mentioned: the statutory declaration and the compelling reasons for non-release.

It is now the end of December and I am very concerned at this stage that the Government's proposed legislation is unlikely to get through the Oireachtas before the election. This is a source of great concern, not just to myself as a legislator and as an adopted person, but also to tens of thousands of adopted people and natural parents all across the country who were separated through forced adoption. This is the first chance they have had to be given rights by the Irish Government. This issue has never been legislated on before, even though in the UK adopted people have had a right to their birth certificate and birth identity since the 1970s, as has been the case for decades in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. There was great hope. When the Seanad passed my Bill earlier this year, I got letters from all over the country, many of them from elderly natural parents - women who were forced to separate from their children decades ago, who are getting on in years and are concerned that they might never get to meet their son or daughter before they pass away.Such women wrote to me in great hope and expectation saying they were delighted that somebody was finally doing something about this, and they hoped the legislation would be passed without further delay. The reason I have tabled this Commencement matter today is to ask the Minister of State, who is attending on behalf of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, if the legislation will be brought forward by the Government before the election. Will it be amended to take account of the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Health and Children? I remind the Minister of State of a Bill on the Order Paper, passed by this House and endorsed by the Government representatives in the House who stated at the time that they hoped that Bill would be progressed and that the Government would work with Senator Jillian van Turnout, me and others in getting legislation through, based on that Bill. If the Government Bill is not going to be passed on time, I urge the Minister of State to look again at the Seanad Bill which is halfway through the process in the Oireachtas and could easily be brought through the Dáil before the election.