Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We are legislators and should not be afraid of significant changes in legislative direction. The very fact that we are looking at these amendments now, that we have the Child and Family Relationships Act, we had the marriage equality referendum and the many other changes that we have had, reflect the fact that we do not need to be afraid of significant legislative change when it is moving in the right direction.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child talks about the right to identity. There are circumstances in Ireland now where one can get a new birth certificate and part of one's identity, culture and cultural rights can be affected by the process of adoption. The Ryan report on child abuse found that restrictions in family contact were a concern and could be damaging for some children and their relationships with others. We need to do better in terms of ensuring that this legislation is designed in such a way that it is able to respond to the introduction of open adoption, if that was to become possible. That is something that should be worked on between Committee and Report Stages.

At the moment, the Bill embeds many of the factors of closed adoption. In later sections, for example, the Bill deals with inheritance rights from new adoptive parents but in terms of the wider family network and a person's potential rights as a next-of-kin, that could be damaging for the child. There are circumstances in which we are going to have a very material impact on children's lives in the changes in law that we have now and I feel this is an opportunity missed.I appreciate the Minister has said she is willing to discuss how we move forward on this. It is not enough to have an informal move towards more openness and communication. This legislation needs to give some provision for voluntary agreements. People who have looked at it from a legal perspective believe that a voluntary agreement between the birth family and the adoptive family should be possible where the adopted family is agreeable. The adoptive family takes on the rights under the Constitution now. Perhaps we can examine that. We need to be more ambitious even between Committee and Report Stage.