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

Amendment No. 32 seeks to ensure that in a scenario where a person has applied to a relevant body for birth, early life care, or medical information, and no records exist, as well as informing the applicant of this fact - which was provided for already under the legislation - the relevant body will also advise the applicant of the right to make an application through the contact preference register and to the tracing service. I am confident that, in a scenario where records do not exist, strong supports will be made available to the person.

Section 63(1)(b) already provides that the agency and the authority will support persons by helping to identify for them a relevant body that may hold records for them. That provision is there already. What I am proposing is in addition to that. Amendment No. 32 builds on that spectrum of support and ensures that where records are not found, an applicant will be signposted to the other avenues to information provided for under this Bill.

I did reflect on what Senator Higgins had said when we discussed this previously. I am not providing for a statement of why there is not information because I do not believe this would be doable in the vast majority of situations. I take on board the Senator's point that a message of "No information. The end". is not satisfactory. This amendment provides for signposting to both the contact preference register and the tracing service. I know that very little will remove the disappointment for some people when they find that there is no information, but with regard to our obligations to people and the best that we can do to help, notwithstanding the other provisions in the legislation, this at least shows them an ability to place themselves on the contact preference register, where there may be a potential for someone else to reach out to contact the person, and to use the basic service where proactively the person may be able to use that to start to re-establish those lost family links.