Adoption rights campaigners want new agency to deal with tracing requests

Mari Steed of the Adoption Rights Alliance said: 'I think the players to date are just too entwined in the past horrible history to be effective regulators of our information.'

Adoption rights campaigners have called for an entirely new agency to deal with access to information and tracing requests.

The Oireachtas children's committee has been told that Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) should not continue to play a part in adoptees' lives or make determinations on access to information.

The committee is currently scrutinising a bill to give adopted people access to their birth certificates and other personal information.

Maree Ryan O'Brien of Aitheantas said the two agencies have "worked so effectively in demonising and weaponising adoptees and their right to identity" that they can be "perceived as a threat to our birth mothers or birth families".

Ms Ryan O'Brien told the committee that the AAI refused nine applications for birth certificates in 2019, and six in 2018.

She said the Information and Tracing Bill would see this "self same agency, which has already ruled on these applications, again have an integral part in the process of adoptees applying for a copy of their birth certificate".

"This begs serious questions as to the constitutionality of this process."

Ms Ryan O'Brien told the committee that a "clean break/clean slate" model now must be adopted which would require the establishment of an agency with a new social work model.

Mari Steed of the Adoption Rights Alliance agreed with this and told the committee: "I think the players to date are just too entwined in the past horrible history to be effective regulators of our information."

Meanwhile, Barnardos wants the notice period for birth mothers to register their contact preference option increased from three to a minimum of six months as part of the legislation.

Christine Hennessey, project leader of the Barnardos Post-Adoption Service, said the organisation has worked with more than 1,000 birth mothers — many say they need time to consider their options and may need to seek personal and professional support with this, she said.

"There was a very wide range of views. Some women were really pleased to see the legislation, some women were very apprehensive and very nervous as to what it was going to mean," Ms Hennessey said.

"It's going to be all about communicating, gently, carefully, accessibly, and for a much longer period than three months to reach out to women around the country, not just through national media, but through local media, through radio, making friendly voices available for them to speak to about their concerns, not having them have to engage with computerised systems to express the preferences.

"I think it's that kind of duty of careful care to encourage those frightened women to come forward in an empathetic way. That is the way forward with this," Ms Hennessey told the committee.

Ms Hennessey said a UK system gave birth mothers two years to say whether they want to be contacted or not.

Many of the representatives who appeared before the committee criticised proposals for an information session for adoptees whose birth parents indicate they do not wish to have contact, claiming this measure is discriminatory and in breach of the equal rights and freedoms of adopted people.