I thank the Minister of State for coming. I am delighted, knowing her concern for children, that she will be replying to my question.
In their programme for Government published in 1997 the partners in Government promised to establish an adoption contact register. I have before me a copy of the programme which states, under the heading "Children", that establishing a voluntary contact register for adult adoptees to contact birth parents will be a key priority. Failure to do so almost four years later is shabby in the extreme. The Adoption Board, the Law Society's law reform committee, the Adopted Person's Association and many other organisations and individuals have repeatedly asked that what can only be described as a human right be established.
Contact registers have been established in many other countries, including most member states of the European Union. In Opposition, the Tanáiste suggested that such a register should be established urgently, yet the position remains the same almost four years later.
There is no question of anyone being sought who does not wish to be found. We are only too well aware of the stigma attached to single motherhood and, despite improved attitudes, the report on abortion produced by Evelyn Mahon and her colleagues at Trinity College Dublin shows that fear of social condemnation is an important factor in young women seeking abortion in England.
A contact register is one on which mothers or fathers who gave up children for adoption could put their names. Adoptees over the age of 18 years could also register. Such a register would be entirely in line with our adoption legislation. I take this opportunity to ask that our adoption legislation – there are six different Acts – be consolidated as requested by the Adoption Board and many other agencies.
We will still encounter problems even after such a register is established because some women were forced or encouraged to give false names or to deny their identities. This presents a great problem for those independently seeking the identity of their birth mothers from their birth certificates. Those whose children were sent to America and England in the 1950s and 1960s have the additional problem of distance. Many children adopted in those countries are of the view that they have been denied their Irish identity – they are, after all, similar in appearance to those around them, but their ethnicity has been ignored. We have done nothing to rectify this.
A register was established by a voluntary group, the Adopted Persons Association, in the early 1990s. I had the honour last year of launching its website – www.adoptionIreland.com. There are 1,700 names on the register. This indicates the great demand for such a register. It is, however, impossible for a voluntary organisation to satisfactorily manage such a difficult and sensitive procedure. Three sets of people have recently been reunited through the website while ten others have been in contact by telephone.
This is a suitable night, St. Valentine's, on which to raise this topic. I have tabled this motion as close as possible to the date on which I last tabled it, 18 February 1997, on which date we debated the Adoption (No. 2) Bill, 1996. I welcomed the then Minister's statement that a contact register was about to be established. I have been frequently informed that this is a matter of priority. I would hate to think what is a matter of secondary consideration.
In four years some older women have died without ever having the joy of seeing the child they gave up, almost certainly with great reluctance. Their children will never be in a position to find out more about their background. The situation is so sad that that Government's delay can only be described as despicable and not understandable.
