Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I provided the Senator's amendment to the Attorney General and his office and requested urgent advice on it to be able to offer a summary of that advice in this Chamber today. A summary of the Attorney General's approach begins with the need to balance rights on an individualised basis for the possible, and doubtless small, number of cases in which a birth mother asserts her right to privacy. That is very important. I have got the Attorney General's advice back with great urgency. I spoke to him this morning when he was in The Hague.

There are two parts to the amendment proposed by Senator Bacik. She suggests in the first part of the amendment that, rather than Tusla contacting all birth parents to ascertain if they have any concerns about the information being sought, provision should be made for an opt-in mechanism that would allow birth parents to register their objections to the release of information for a specified period. On first sight, there appears to be no legal obstacle to having an administrative process that allows birth parents to opt into a process rather than having to opt out. At this point, there does not appear to be a difficulty in principle with this aspect of the amendment. However, a detailed scheme of opting in would require further advice from the Attorney General's office to ensure the rights of all parties were adequately protected in its operation. I think the advice that has come back on this part of the amendment is significant.

The second part of Senator Bacik's amendment provides that if an application is received in respect of a person who has concerns about the information being sought, an information meeting will be held at which the applicant will be informed of the registered objection of the birth parents, and then the information will be released. I am advised that this part of the amendment does not adequately protect or vindicate the rights of birth parents in that it allows them to register their objection without providing for a mechanism to enable it to be considered. I have clear legal advice that there must be some mechanism to balance the rights of applicants and birth parents on a case-by-case basis. To achieve a constitutionally sound Bill, there must be some determination against criteria on the competing rights of the applicant and the birth parent.

I will conclude my opening remarks by suggesting a way forward to continue to make this law. I wish to listen intently to the views of Senators. My officials are listening too. The Attorney General and his officials will take note of every word. I would like to meet political parties and Independents to discuss and engage further on these difficult, sensitive and technical matters with regard to the rights of natural parents and adopted people. I would like to meet stakeholders, including the representative groups of adopted people, social workers and natural parents, to hear their views on our efforts to amend the legislation. In light of these various consultations, I would like to see whether we can build on and refine Senator Bacik's amendment to come up with something that is acceptable to the Attorney General, stakeholders and lawmakers. At that stage, I would like to resume Committee Stage in this great Seanad. I want to develop the law in this area with Senators and our colleagues in the Dáil. I believe this is possible and necessary, now more than ever.