Q&A: What does the Birth Information and Tracing Bill mean for adoptees?

Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman: The Birth Information and Tracing Bill will go before the Oireachtas next week. File picture: Leah Farrell/Rollingnews.ie

Who can access information and what will they have access to?

All people who were adopted, boarded out, the subject of an illegal birth registration or who otherwise have questions in relation to their origins will be able to seek personal information under the bill.

This will include birth certs, baptismal certs, early life information and care information.

What about medical records?

People will also receive their own medical information. 

However, adopted people will not directly receive details relating to their birth parents. Instead, the medical information of a parent or genetic relative will be released via a medical practitioner.

What happens if a person has died?

Birth certificates, birth information, early life information, care information and medical information will be released to the child of a relevant person if that person and the parents named on the birth certificate are dead. Information will also be released to a next of kin of a person who died as a child in one of the institutions specified in the bill.

What if people want to make contact with relatives?

The legislation also establishes a comprehensive tracing service for those who want to make contact with family or seek or share information. It also establishes a new statutory Contact Preference Register, which offers a means for people to log their preference for contact with family and also a mechanism to lodge communications and contemporary medical information which can be shared with family members.

What happens in the case of a no-contact preference?

Some campaigners have raised criticisms around the fact that where a no-contact preference is lodged, the person seeking information will have to go through an information session. Children's minister Roderic O'Gorman said this information session need no longer be a physical meeting and the revised bill makes provision for this to take place via a short phone or video call.

When will the changes come into force?

The Bill will go before the Oireachtas next week. 

When passed, there will be a three-month 'grace period' to allow Tusla advertise the new measures and to give both mothers and adopted people time to submit a no-contact preference if they do not want any engagement with relatives.