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

Section 42(2) in the Bill as passed by the Dáil provides a mechanism whereby the preferences recorded by the current national adoption contact preference register will be transferred to the new contact preference register to be established. This amendment deletes the part of section 42 that achieves this necessary function and does not replace it, leaving a subsection that does not actually do anything. All the amended subsection would do is say what will not happen. This may have been an oversight in the drafting of the amendment. I believe the intention of the amendment was to create an exception whereby, if a person has not personally indicated a preference on the existing contact preference register, that will not be taken to mean a no contact preference in the new register. That is what we take was meant to happen here. To provide some reassurance, there is no need to create such an exemption as the existing provision will only transfer an entry from the old register if an entry made by that person exists. Only the person or the solicitor acting on their behalf can record a preference on the existing national adoption contact preference register.