Parliamentary Question addressed to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs

To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if the upcoming Adoption Information and Tracing Bill 2012 will provide for adoptees for whom apparently no records exist, as opposed to just providing for adoptees where records are known to be available; and if so, if she will outline the reason the Bill could provide a means through which such adoptees could source currently inaccessible information; and if she will make a statement on the matter?

Reply

Tracing services currently provided by the Adoption Authority through the National Adoption Contact Preference Register are available to all adopted persons and birth parents who wish to obtain information about or make contact with a person from whom they have been separated as a consequence of adoption.

The Heads of Bill of the proposed Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill 2012 are currently being drafted in my Department. My intention is to establish the National Adoption Contact Preference Register on a statutory basis so that adopted persons, birth parents and others separated as a consequence of an adoption will have access to the tracing and information service. While drafting of the Heads of Bill is still under way in my Department, it is intended that the proposed legislation will provide for a structured and regulated way of both safeguarding adoption records and providing access to adoption information and will give the Adoption Authority overall responsibility for ensuring that access to adoption information is provided in accordance with the proposed legislation.