Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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Question 103: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will clarify if post adoption services will be included in the Adoption Bill for the 40,000 plus adopted people here and the children who will be adopted; if she will include a tracing service for adopted persons; and if she will address the issue of adoption certificates for adopted people who can only obtain them in a different way from the rest of the population. [47781/09]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Under the new Bill, there is no specific provision to provide post adoption services. Adopted children have, and will continue to have, the same eligibility and entitlements to health and personal social services and special education needs as any child in Ireland. However, the Bill does make statutory provision for the notification by adoptive parents of the adoption on return to Ireland with a child. This notification must be made both to the Adoption Authority for the purposes of registering the child as well as to the HSE, so that the child receives all of the normal child health surveillance services available through the public health system.

As regards information and tracing for adopted persons, again, the Bill does not cover this area as there is already an effective administrative system for dealing with the issue of information and tracing. The Information and Tracing Unit in the Adoption Board provides an advice and referral service for those seeking to trace or to obtain medical or personal information. The National Adoption Contact Preference Register (NACPR) assists adopted people and their natural families to make contact with each other, exchange information, or to state their contact preferences.

In November 2007, the Adoption Board launched the "Standardised Framework for the Provision of a National Adoption Information and Tracing Service" to set standards and provide guidance and advice for information and tracing services providers nationally. In relation to Information and Tracing for persons adopted from abroad, I understand that subject to resources, the Adoption Board intends to undertake a consultation process with interested parties to determine how best to address the information and tracing needs of those who have been adopted from abroad.

The provisions governing the registration of domestic adoptions and the issue of birth certificates drawn from the register of adoptions are set out in section 22 of the Adoption Act, 1952. Under these provisions, the Registrar General is charged with maintaining an Adopted Children Register and also to keep an index to make traceable the connection between each entry and the corresponding entry in the register of births. The index is not open to public inspection and no information from it may be given to any person except by order of a Court or of the Adoption Board. A certified copy of an entry in the Adopted Children Register, if purporting to be issued under the seal of Oifig an Ard-Chlaraitheora, shall, without further proof, be received as evidence of the facts stated therein and any requirement of law for the production of a certificate of birth shall be satisfied by the production of such certified copy.

Under the above provisions, birth certificates for adopted persons are available only from the Office of the Registrar General. While it is appreciated that this may cause a degree of inconvenience in certain instances the security and confidentiality of the Adopted Children Register is of paramount importance and it is for this reason only that the restriction on availability exists. For this reason also, there are no plans to amend the legislation to change the current arrangements in relation to this matter.