Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Earlier in this debate, on Second Stage, the Minister began with an apology, in part, in respect of illegal adoptions. We have been speaking about these illegal adoptions but there is no reference anywhere in the Bill to "illegal". As Senator Boyhan says, it was illegal and to put in "incorrect" is insufficient. It simply does not cover everything and "incorrect" is not an umbrella under which "illegal" can fit. It is a different thing. It is giving an excuse and providing a new frame, which is "incorrect", that can be applied even to situations where we know the extent to which this was absolutely 100% intentionally done.

These are not situations where people are tiredly putting down a wrong detail or a wrong piece of information. These are situations in which we have intentional situations of deceit, where there is straight-up false information, which is different from "incorrect" as well, even leaving aside the illegal issue. That is not covered by the reference to "incorrect", which is a soft framing. There may be situations where there are incorrect records, but to somehow amalgamate false and illegal birth registrations under that same heading does not work. If it is not possible to amalgamate them under that, the question is why illegality is not specifically being identified.

There are two different approaches. There is a large volume of amendments. The amendments from Senator Warfield and others are trying to give a definition in respect of illegal adoption. They are looking to insert a specific reference to the personal data of a relevant person whose birth was illegally registered. In the case of my amendments, I primarily attached "or illegal" after "incorrect" so it would read "incorrect or illegal".

The question of "or illegal" arises throughout the Bill. It is in multiple places. "Incorrect" is used consistently throughout. It embeds a framing which is woefully inadequate for a large number of cases where we know that birth registration and other information has been intentionally and illegally falsified. The use of "incorrect" is a get-out clause. I do not mind the word being in the Bill. Some of the amendments suggest the removal of all references to "incorrect". I do not mind "incorrect" being there, but it needs to have "illegal" placed alongside it. That is very important because, as Senator Boyhan says, many of the illegal registrations are known about and that has been the case for a long period without being properly pursued.

We had the sampling exercises to see how widespread it was. I acknowledge journalists like Conall Ó Fátharta, who has been exposing these issues for years. It is not appropriate that the State would suggest that we have learned, we are apologising, and we recognise that these terrible things have happened and then have a Bill that explicitly does not include recognition of the fact of illegal birth registrations, and does not include that in the conversation about how people can access their relevant information.

I join with Senator Boyhan in asking if there is a reason it is not being inserted. We need to know why. If that reason is we are concerned that people will be afraid that they may implicate themselves on having committed a crime, then we can put caveats in around offences relating to the destruction of records that may relate to a crime. What we should not do is give an indirect implication of some kind of half indemnity or immunity by saying we will just treat the information as "incorrect" if it is given over to us. I know that is probably not the intention, but I worry that it could be the effect of how this is framed in the legislation.