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

I cannot accept these amendments, which seek to add to the list of secondary information sources provided for in the legislation, primarily because they do not define what they are intended to cover with the clarity and specificity required in the legislation.

I will draw attention to the secondary information sources currently included in the Bill, which are: the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth; the Minister for Education; the Minister for Foreign Affairs; the Minister for Health; the data controller of the access to institutional and related records project, AIRR, archive; the Health Service Executive; a registered adoption society; an accredited body; and a person prescribed under section 43(2). That last category is incredibly important because, as broad as those initial categories are and while they have been designed to cover those sources we know to hold information at the moment, section 43(2) gives the Minister of the day an additional degree of flexibility and allows him or her to prescribe additional information sources. As I have said, the list currently included in the published Bill, which I have just cited, was carefully considered following consultation with stakeholders and organisations currently operating in the area of adoption, information release and training. In progressing this legislation, it has been my goal for it to focus on where we know records are at the moment to ensure access can be provided to those records as quickly as possible. However, the legislation also provides an avenue to allow access to other sources of information, should any be identified.

In light of that, it is important to also recognise section 46, which is another catch-all provision requiring any person or organisation in possession of a relevant record to safeguard that record and to inform the authority that it holds it. This allows the record to either be taken over immediately by the authority or for that person to be designated as a secondary information source. The Bill therefore obliges individuals or bodies holding relevant information to come forward and identify themselves, allowing use to be made of the designation element of section 43(2).

With regard to the broad ambit of information, I looked into the issue of the application of the GDPR and freedom of information legislation to psychiatric and other health institutions and these do apply. A subject access request can be made to a psychiatric institution or an organisation that now holds records, including the HSE. Where records are held by the HSE, they are also subject to freedom of information requests.

In the context of this legislation, of knowing, as we do, where those key sources of information are, of wanting to provide access to that information now, and of having those catch-all elements, including the obligation on holders of relevant records to identify themselves to the authority, and the ability of a future Minister to designate a body or individual as a secondary information source under section 43(2), I believe that the architecture in place to ensure access is given now to information is sufficient and that we have mechanisms available to us should other sources be revealed in the future.