Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I thank the Minister for her presence in the Chamber this afternoon. I welcome the fact that the Bill has not returned for Committee Stage and that instead we are instead having statements on adoption, information and tracing.

On a purely practical level, I certainly did not feel I had had enough time to review the more than 150 amendments from Government and Opposition and the really significant rewriting of the Bill that was proposed.

I certainly had not had enough time to review the significant amount of correspondence received directly from adopted people who expressed their concerns and anxieties and suggested the changes they sought and needed to see to feel recognised, supported and respected in any real way by a law that is supposed to be designed for them.

It was quite stark to have read and reread the points made by adopted person after adopted person who got in touch with us in the past week to the effect that they would rather have no law at all in preference to the law the Government was proposing. Even just on that basis, it would justify taking some time to pause and reflect on the Bill, its provisions and the balancing of rights that are at its very heart; that balance between the adopted person’s fundamental right to their identity, to knowing themselves and documents about their own lives and the right to privacy of a birth parent.

I recognise the work that the Minister has done during the past three years and that she has done her best to make progress within the confines that she perceives. However, for me the main problem with the Bill is that it still confuses information about the adopted person and tracing, as other Senators have mentioned, which is about contact and relationships. They are far from being the same thing and yet in this Bill, they are treated as being the same and without distinction.

That is far from the only problem, which include the restrictions on information, which are unlike those imposed on any other citizen, the absence of a single mention in the Bill of the Data Protection Act 2018 or of the general data protection regulation, GDPR, and the continuous philosophy throughout the Bill, which states that adopted people cannot be trusted with their own identities. Should we consider, in the rewriting of the legislation, the Data Protection Act 2018 after GDPR, then I believe the adoption agency would be the data controller.

It is also of extreme concern that we have not seen the published full report from the collaborative forum on the mother and baby homes. This is a representative group of both adopted people and birth parents with directly relevant experience and views on this Bill, who I understand make direct criticisms of the Bill in the report and yet we cannot read them. At an absolute minimum, this Bill should be postponed until we can hear what that report has to say.

As tough as it may be to hear this, many Members and I think we need to withdraw the Bill. On a purely practical level, the Minister has proposed a significant rewriting of the Bill on Committee Stage, and in her memorandum to Senators, she is planning more on Report Stage. The absolute minimum the Minister could do would be to introduce a new Bill with all those changes made in order that we could assess it as a whole on its merits. However, as the Minister will know from her meetings with advocates for the adopted - I really welcome that she took the time to do this - even the substantially rewritten Bill she is proposing is still discriminatory, it is still stigmatising and it still targets adopted people as different and untrustworthy.

I know the Minister must act in accordance with the advice of the Attorney General, but it is clear to Members in this House that the right balancing of rights to privacy and information established in the IO'T v. B case has not been struck. I know also that the Minister states that our Constitution puts us in a different category from other common law countries and that we cannot look to the UK for inspiration. However, the provisions the Minister has proposed to balance these rights are not the only option.

Senator Bacik has proposed an amendment and the Minister has obviously spoken about that amendment, and I hope that if the Minister is not looking at rewriting the Bill, she will works with Senator Bacik's amendment.

I also believe the model in Northern Ireland where everyone receiving information is given a one-to-one information session beforehand and informed of their rights and responsibilities is worth looking at, where adopted people can be treated as adults and with respect. I welcome the Minister's comments to that effect. I believe there are other ways that we could draft a better way to do this but it will require flexibility on the part the Minister and from the Attorney General, as well as an openness to give up on the approach with which we started.

In light of our history in this country of illegal adoption and incarceration, we have a moral responsibility to do this properly and to give a cohort of people who have been marginalised and mistreated by the State a chance to find their truth. We have to get it right for them.