Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As the Senator is aware, the Government approved the publication of the heads and general scheme of the adoption (information and tracing) Bill 2015 last July. The Bill is intended to facilitate access to adoption information and operates on the basis of presumption in favour of disclosing information in so far as is legally and constitutionally possible. The Bill will, for the first time, provide a statutory basis for the provision of information related to both past and future adoptions. It will provide clarity around the information that can be provided and the circumstances in which it can be provided.

Efforts have been ongoing for many years to address the issues related to the provision of a statutory entitlement to identity information, in particular an original birth certificate to adopted persons. The overall policy objective in bringing forward proposed legislation on adoption information and tracing has always been to provide access to as much information as possible to adopted persons.

The adoption (information and tracing) Bill 2015 provides that where an adoption was effected prior to the commencement of this Bill, the information required to apply for a birth certificate will be provided to an adopted person when they have signed a statutory declaration agreeing to respect the privacy of their birth parent and not to contact their birth parent or ask anyone else to make contact on their behalf. There will be no requirement for an adopted person to sign a statutory declaration where birth parents have indicated a preference for contact or have consented to the release of the information or where it is established that the birth parents are deceased. The Bill also provides that where an adoption is effected after the commencement of this Bill, an adopted person will be entitled to their birth certificate once they are aged 18 or over.

The Bill also provides that the Adoption Authority of Ireland will be responsible for collecting, restoring, preserving and the safekeeping of adoption records, including information relating to informal adoptions and persons whose birth was incorrectly registered. It will set out the information that must be retained by the authority for future adoptions and, in so far as it is available, for past adoptions, persons whose adoption is registered in the register of inter-country adoptions, informal adoptions and incorrect birth registrations Persons who were the subject of incorrect birth registrations will be given access to service provision.

The Bill was referred to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children for pre-legislative scrutiny and the committee published its report recently. The committee’s key recommendations were that the definition of "compelling reasons" be further clarified and more tightly defined in the Bill. In cases where non-disclosure is sought citing compelling reasons, this should be supported by medical evidence. Consideration should be given to excluding the statutory declaration provision from the Bill. This could possibly be replaced by an alternative provision where the applicant is required, before the birth certificate is released, to attend one preparatory session to discuss and explore the issues concerning privacy and respect. Consideration should be given to reducing the lead-in to a much shorter time period and to holding a shorter, more intense information awareness campaign over a six-month period, to include engagement with social media and a wide range of community groups which can help to raise awareness about the new register. In the case of the illegally adopted, consideration should be given to establishing a dedicated unit to investigate those cases actively and a review of service requirements arising from the Bill should be undertaken.

The Minister, Deputy James Reilly, welcomes the report of Oireachtas committee and believes it is a valuable contribution to the debate on this important Bill. He has examined the recommendations of the committee very carefully and will shortly finalise the Bill in light of the committee’s recommendations. The heads will be submitted to the Office of the ParIiamentary Counsel very shortly with a request to draft the Bill as a matter of urgency. In view of the size and complexity of the Bill, the Minister does not want to offer any guarantees about how quickly it can be finalised. However, he wishes to assure the Senator that he will work closely with the Attorney General to facilitate the Bill's completion as soon as possible.