I move amendment No. 5:
In page 37, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following:
“Amendment of Adoption Act 2010
36. Section 89 of the Adoption Act 2010 is amended in subsection (2) to now read "A certificate referred to in subsection (1) must disclose that the person to whom the certificate relates is an adopted person.".".
I thank the Minister of State, the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection and the officials of their Department and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs for their engagement over the past few days. I propose an amendment to the Adoption Act 2010 and I thank my colleagues, Senators Fiach Mac Conghail, Marie-Louise O'Donnell, Katherine Zappone and Mary Ann O'Brien, for supporting it. I also thank Treoir, which raised the issue with me, as well as a number of other individuals.
The amendment is based on a relatively new law introduced in 2010 which has had unintended consequences. The Adoption Act 2010 replaced the Adoption Act 1952. Prior to 2010, under adoption legislation, an adopted person applying for a birth certificate would receive it from the adopted children's register, clearly indicating that he or she was adopted. The Adoption Act 2010 provides that the State may not disclose that somebody was adopted. While I accept that we will discuss the right to identity when we debate the information and tracing legislation, the right to know one is adopted is central. Article 8 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that state parties, including Ireland - our next periodic review is due shortly - "undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognised by law without unlawful interference".
Article 8 further states, "Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity." The difficulty in my view is that in an ideal scenario the fact that a child is adopted should never be an issue. A child should never not know that he or she is adopted. In most cases the child does not remember the moment he or she was told this fact because it was never a secret. I do not consider that being adopted is a stigma in the Ireland of today. However, there are some parents - I know such people and I know from cases I deal with - who will conceal the fact that the child is adopted. The State cannot collude with that concealment. For example, a parent applying for an adopted child's birth certificate will be asked if he or she wishes this fact to be stated on the birth certificate. Such a parent can say that he or she wants no trace of that fact on the birth certificate. Therefore, the birth certificate will be, so to speak, clean. The parents will obtain a passport for the child and any renewal only requires the expired passport so there is no need to present the birth certificate.
Only when an adult undergoes a significant life event such as getting married, purchasing property or going to university will he or she be required to produce a birth certificate. It may be that the parents will have handed on the original certificate which gives no indication that the person is adopted. I understand that it is not anyone else's business to know if a person is adopted. However, I think we are adding to the stigma. For me it is a fact; a stigma means marking out or describing something as bad. One can safely describe the current situation as the stigmatisation by omission of adoption, whereby the considered effort to disguise or hide the matter of fact infers that there is something shameful or inherently wrong with the practice. This is not the message about adoption that we should be espousing.
Why is the case being made for this cover-up? We have a shameful past with regard to adoption and we have a long way to go in dealing with that past. A child being adopted in Ireland today is still denied the right to his or her identity because Ireland is one of the few European countries operating a closed adoption system. Therefore, the situation for Philomena Lee and many others like her is still in place and we still cover up. An adopted child has no right to ever know the identity of his or her natural parents. At the very least we should give them a signal in the civil registration legislation that an adopted child has the right to know that he or she is adopted.
There are many reasons to need to know why one is adopted such as genetic medical conditions, for example. However, need to know identity is very strong and very powerful. I am fortunate in that I am not adopted and nobody in my family is adopted so I do not understand that need. I come from an average Irish family with a keen interest in genealogy and I have found great strength in knowing about my past and my roots and understanding where I came from; I cannot imagine if information about one or both sides of my family was cut off. I accept the good intentions of the original provision in the 2010 Act but the unintended consequences were overlooked. It is important that the adopted person knows for sure if he or she is adopted. There must be a way in which the fact can be stated while I assert that there is no stigma attached to being adopted.
I referred to our shameful past. The most recent revelations following the discovery of a mass grave at Tuam by historian, Catherine Corless, made all Members hang our heads in shame. This discovery led to the establishment of the inquiry into mother and baby homes. I look forward to the opportunity to review the terms of reference of the inquiry. I hope the issue of legality of adoptions prior to the Adoption Act 1952 will be addressed by this inquiry.
I refer to the definition of an illegal adoption. It is not a de facto adoption through the Adoption Authority. An illegal adoption is where the child was registered as the natural child of the adoptive parents. However, in my opinion what we are doing with the birth certificates is very similar to what happened in the past. Parents are given a certificate to certify that this is their child over whom they have ownership and the State will not indicate that this child is adopted.
I am arguing my case from the perspective of children's rights. I have strong views about the integrity of State documents which should be beyond question. If the State starts to conceal actual facts in official documents, it is a fine line and there is a question of where this practice will lead. I have heard the argument that individuals do not wish others to know their private business but there are very few occasions in life when a birth certificate is required. I have been told that one of the reasons is that no parent wants his or her child to be regarded as different from other children. This reasoning could also be applied to where the father's name does not appear on the birth certificate. Is it right to add the father's name to avoid the child being stigmatised? Where is the line to be drawn? A birth certificate is an official document in which the State should clearly mark the facts.
The most popular male first and last name combination is Jack Murphy. I wonder if the State will put that name on every birth certificate where a blank occurs. A State document is a document of fact. If a birth certificate records the names of the mother and father I should assume that they are the natural parents of that child and the child should also naturally assume it. However, when the child becomes an adult and is getting married, he or she will apply for his or her birth certificate. Is this when the State wants that person to find out that he or she is adopted? By means of the birth certificate the State will have partaken in not telling the person the fact that he or she has been adopted. The State should not conceal the truth. I wonder if in years to come an adopted child could argue that the State colluded with his or her parents in concealing that truth.
I am very passionate on this issue. I have been in this Chamber when we have talked about our shameful past but this issue is about our current legislation which legislates for a birth certificate issued last week, this week or next week. The legislation was enacted in 2010 and I agree it had very good intentions but the unintended consequences were not foreseen. Those consequences are now known and it is time to make the change to rectify this situation. I do not want to be part of any future legacies. I want to be able to say that I was willing to stand up and identify it. It is important that we take action in this regard. No doubt I will be told that there will be an information and tracing Bill which will be a more appropriate vehicle. When will we have that Bill before the House? Birth certificates are being issued every day which do not clearly indicate that the child is adopted. I ask that something should be on the birth certificate to indicate that the parents listed are the adoptive parents. I am not asking for floodlights. Prior to 2010 the information was noted as coming from the register of adopted children. I ask for a statement of fact that the parents listed are the adoptive parents.
The Department of Children and Youth Affairs will need more resources if these Bills are coming forward. I plead with the Minister of State to accept this amendment. It is not right that we do not state the facts on a State document. It is a birth certificate and there must be integrity in State documents. More important from my perspective are the rights of children. We have come a long way in recent years in Ireland to strengthen and uphold the rights of children but we cannot let any law stand if it goes against those rights.
