The Law Society has proposed a radical overhaul of adoption legislation in Ireland. The proposals include a proposal that adopted people should have the right to access information about their natural parents. Adopted persons would have an absolute right to health information and medical history, although natural parents would be able to veto the disclosure of their names. The Law Society also proposes the establishment of a voluntary register so that adopted children and their birth parents can find each other.
Over the last number of years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of adopted people looking for information about their birth parents. Recommendations published today by the Law Society would make such a search considerably easier. The society has proposed allowing adopted people to have access to the names and addresses of their natural parents, unless those parents have specifically registered a veto against such information being disclosed.
The society has also suggested adopted people should have an absolute right to available information that does not identify the birth parents. This so-called non-identifying information would include information relating to health and medical history, as well as the welfare and the marital status of the natural parents. The report also recommends that legislation should require adoption agencies to retain, under threat of criminal penalty, all records relating to adoptions. It also argues that unmarried couples should no longer be excluded from adopting and that children born within marriage should be eligible for adoption.
