Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 July 2014
628. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if forthcoming legislation on adoption tracing legislation will allow those illegally adopted from mother and baby homes to access their birth records. [27966/14]
View answerThe Adoption Act 1952 provided a legal basis for adoption in Ireland and for the establishment of the Adoption Board. This brought order to what had been the system of ad-hoc arrangements in lieu of formal adoption procedures up to this point. All adoptions, which the Irish state has been involved in since 1952 have been carried out in line with this and subsequent adoption legislation. However historic private arrangements for obvious reasons and due to social factors of the era, operated in conditions of great secrecy and there were rarely any contemporary written records of these events. Similarly, the issue of illegal adoptions relates to illegal registrations, i.e., children who were given at birth to other individuals who registered these children as their own and who are now unable to access personal records and information. The issue of illegal registrations of births are a matter for the General Registration Office which is the responsibility of the Department of Social Protection however the Adoption Authority of Ireland may also be able to provide assistance in this regard.
Records in relation illegal birth registrations, where such records exist, are currently held by a number of agencies, including the Adoption Authority of Ireland, Child and Family Agency and also by private adoption agencies, maternity hospitals, private individuals and other sources. Information held by the Adoption Authority is primarily in relation to adoptions which took place since the Adoption Act 1952. The Authority has advised me that, in the first instance, any person seeking information on adoption, or an illegal registration of a birth, should contact the Adoption Authority of Ireland or the Child and Family Agency’s Community Services who will assist in directing them to the personnel dealing with their particular records.
The National Adoption Contact Register which is operated by the Adoption Authority was established in 2005 to assist adopted people and their natural families to make contact with each other, exchange information or state their contact preferences. When the former Adoption Board launched the National Adoption Contact Preference Register in 2005, provision was made for persons, who were party to the illegal registration of a child, to register an interest in the Register for possible future contact with another party sometime in the future. Fundamental to the success of the Register is that any persons with information in this regard contact the Information and Tracing Unit of the Adoption Authority.
My Department is continuing to work on the Heads of Bill for the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill and I hope to be in a position to seek Government approval to publish the Heads of Bill as soon as possible. While the Deputy will appreciate that I am not in a position to give a comprehensive account of the provisions of the proposed legislation until the Heads of Bill have been agreed by Government, I can say that the issues in relation to illegal registrations are being considered as part of the drafting process.
