Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, and welcome the opportunity to again debate the Bill, which has been a long time coming. As some of us pointed out on the Order of Business this morning, Second Stage of the Bill was taken on 22 March 2017, which is over two years ago. We had awaited the amendments and I know we will now have a full debate on those amendments.

Section 1 gives the Short Title of the Bill as the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill 2016. There was huge expectation and hope that the Bill, as amended by the Government on Committee Stage and Report Stage, would represent a really historic step forward, in particular in terms of information rights for adopted persons, and a break with the past and the old practice whereby this was an issue shrouded in secrecy.Unfortunately, the publication of the Minister's amendments so late on Monday night has not given us sufficient time to have a very measured debate on them. I welcome the fact we will adjourn at 6 p.m. I also welcome the fact the Minister has called a further briefing session with Senators tomorrow, which I will attend.

Things have moved on in the more than two years since Second Stage was debated. There is now a very strong and clear case for unfettered access to information, as suggested by the Title of the Bill contained in section 1. We have moved beyond the position where adopted persons or other stakeholders might have accepted conditions on access to information, and I stress the word "information". The Bill is very clear. Section 1(1) mentions information and tracing. These are two separate matters. If any colleague was listening to my colleague, Deputy Joan Burton, on the radio this morning, she made a passionate case for separating the right to information from the right to contact or trace one's birth parents. Clearly, persons who are adopted should have a right to information. At this point, we need to look more clearly and lucidly at why we simply cannot provide for an unfettered right of access, in particular to birth certificates, which are publicly available documents, without conditions.

On Second Stage, we debated at length the need to ensure some protection of rights to privacy for birth parents. I absolutely accept this and I know the Minister has had legal advice on it. Any reading of the IO'T case and other case law will show these rights must be balanced in such a way that privacy does not trump the right to information and the right to know one's identity. I have read the flood of emails we have had from adopted persons, the Adoption Rights Alliance, which expressed serious concern about these amendments, and other stakeholders, such as the Irish Association of Social Workers and the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies, which have also expressed concern about what they see as a flawed Bill, even with the amendments.

Having read all of these, it seems a preferable means of ensuring protection for privacy rights while giving precedence to the right to information would be to do something like we did with the redress scheme. I have been privileged to represent survivors of institutional abuse before the redress board many times. When the State established the residential institution redress scheme there was a need to ensure people who might not have ever disclosed to their close family and friends that they had been a resident in an institution or had been abused in that institution would be able to come forward. Sensibly, the State then placed a prominent series of advertisements which reached out to NGOs and groups representing survivors. It was a comprehensive reaching out process over a period of time to ensure all those who might have been resident in institutions would be made aware of the existence of the scheme and would be able to come forward.

What I suggest, in order to balance rights to privacy and ensure the Bill is truly a right to information Bill, is that the State undertake to advertise that a right of access to birth information will be introduced at a point in future for all those adopted prior to the commencement of the legislation. In the time prior to the introduction of an unfettered right of access I suggest an extensive advertising campaign be undertaken by the State to inform all birth parents who might be concerned about the disclosure of their identity through the provision of birth certificate information that they could come forward and participate in a process to articulate and raise their privacy concerns. This would be a way in which the State could, therefore, clearly address the privacy concerns of what Deputy Burton described as a small but, nonetheless, important group of birth parents who may never have disclosed previously. It would also mean the State would clearly articulate that the rights to information and to know one's identity would take priority and would be pre-eminent.

Very helpfully, Susan Logan of the Adoption Rights Alliance has supplied us with a table of legislation elsewhere. If we look at Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and so on, we see the unfettered right of access to birth certificate information once an adopted person reaches the age of majority is now the norm in many countries. We have moved on. It is two years since Second Stage was debated. We need to address the Title of the Bill and state it should be a Bill about information rights. Tracing, access and contact comprise a separate issue and the Adoption Rights Alliance has made this point. In the Bill itself, section 1 details information and tracing as two different things. If one looks at the different Parts of the Bill, Part 4 is about tracing and Part 5, the most contentious Part, is about the provision of information. They are two different issues. Not all of those who have been targeted and who have been provided with information will go on to contact their birth parents. These are separate issues.

The Title of the Bill is crucial. This is also about information for birth parents who may be very anxious to be contacted by the children they gave up for adoption. As we know, shamefully in the history of the State many young women gave up children for adoption without full access to information or protection of the rights we now recognise as absolutely essential in those cases. In many cases, they were not assured of confidentiality and hoped beyond hope their children would contact them later. There is a very important group of persons waiting to be traced. I have met birth parents who are desperately sad the children do not want to contact them. There are very complex issues as to what persons will or will not do with information or what they want in terms of contact. We should not conflate information and contact, nor should we let privacy trump a right to information and identity.