Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I cannot support amendment No. 65, which seeks to provide for an adoptive parent to apply for medical information for his or her adoptive child where that child is under 16 years of age. It seeks to alter the process through which the release of third-party medical information is provided. This issue is one that was subject to detailed consultations between us, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and the Data Protection Commission. Throughout my time in this role and in my engagements in the lead-up to the drafting of this legislation, I have always recognised that access to the medical history of someone’s family at birth is an important issue to many adopted people, but the release of other people’s information – third parties’ information – has to be surrounded with safeguards.

It is important to recognise that, under this legislation, there are mechanisms to secure a route to access information held by parents who gave their children up for adoption. Adoptive parents can undertake a trace to request information on behalf of their children, make an entry on the register to request information on behalf of their children, and apply for a provided item on behalf of their children. Therefore, the Bill allows opportunities for adoptive parents to seek and be provided with that contemporaneous medical information on behalf of their children.

Amendments Nos. 66 and 67 replace “may” with “shall”. I have been clear on this, in that an open approach to the provision of information will be taken in respect of this Bill. This approach will be set out in the guidelines and is the approach that has been indicated to the authority and the agency in terms of the inter-agency group that is operated by my Department. As such, I do not believe the proposed changes are necessary.

Turning to amendment No. 55, I take the Senator’s point. I was responding to a slightly separate earlier amendment from her. Nevertheless, I am satisfied that access to medical information is sufficiently covered under section 15, which is titled, “Relevant body or Authority to provide medical information relating to relevant person on application by relevant person”. This fully addresses the issue that the Senator flagged.