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The Minister's press release is reproduced below. Following his statement, we have included the various documents referred to in the press release.

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS!

Latest (10th November 2003): Preliminary feedback from the Oral Consultation has been provided. Click here for full details...

The Heads of Bill (now being referred to as a 'General Scheme') is the 'Adoption Information, Post-Adoption Contact and Associated Isses Bill' originally proposed by the current Minister's predecessor, Mary Hanafin, in 2001, following a previous consultation with interested parties, including ourselves, in 1999. To the casual bystander, and to listen to Hanafin at the launch or read the Department's associated press release, the Bill looks fine for adopted people and natural parents.

However, a close reading of the Heads of Bill or asking the "hard questions" reveals many fundamental flaws. Please also be aware that it is only this week that the proposed Heads of Bill have been made public. Normally, Heads of any Bill are not made public until a Bill is actually published in the D&#acute;il (the Irish parliament). We have had to make do with the 'hard questions' until now. The answers to these, though, led AdoptionIreland/the Adopted Peoples Association to reject the proposed Bill soon after it was proposed by Hanafin.

Our rejection of the Bill has led to the present situation — the current Minister, Brian Lenihan, has decided to hold a new consultation. This one will be public and facilitated by an "independent" chairperson. Lenihan also decided to get the permission of the Government to publish the Heads of Hanafin's Bill so that everything would be in the open. However, we still have our doubts — the associated discussion document, written by the independent chairperson, contains several serious inaccuracies/omissions (which are outlined here).

In brief, the main reasons why AdoptionIreland/the Adopted Peoples Association rejected the previous Bill, are as follows:

• It is two-tier legislation — completely different rights would apply to those adopted prior to the Bill being enacted than to those adopted following enactment.
• The Bill provides only for release of certain prescribed information from the file. We do not know exactly what that information would include, but we do know that it does not include what is being called "third party" information. And we have been informed that the name of the natural father is considered to be third-party information. Our demand is that the full adoption file should be released to the adopted person. This is necessary as, apart from the fact that we believe it is a fundamental right, we also know that many Irish adoption agencies were knowingly involved in 'grey' and illegal adoptions; babies later placed for adoption were sometimes used in drug trials without consent of natural parents; many adoptions took place without the "full, free and informed" consent of natural parents; over 2,000 babies were sent abroad to the U.S. and elsewhere in a scheme of very dubious legality. It is time to end the secrets and lies.
• Despite assurances that an information veto would be dropped in favour of a contact veto, an information veto remains — an adopted person would be entitled to their birth certificate except where a natural or even adoptive parent objects on the grounds that there is a possibilty of real harm to an individual.
• The Bill proposes a new criminal offence, with penalties including mprisonment, for breach of a contact veto. This is a Draconian and completely unwarranted measure, in effect assuming guilt prior to the fact. In the prior consultation, any organisation, including APA, that spoke of penalties for breach of a contact veto had referred to existing legislation, which is perfectly adequate (i.e., the Non-Fatal Offenses Against the Person Act — Ireland's "anti-stalking" legislation).
• The Bill provides for the continued involvement of the private adoption agencies. These are the same agencies involved in illegal practices in the past and who continue to frustrate and lie to adopted people and natural parents who have now come back seeking their help.
• he proposed contact veto would have a duration of five years! This is simply way too long — no organisation suggested a duration greater than two years in the prior consultation.
• There is no provision for representation by adopted people or natural parents on either the Adoption Board or the Appeal Board. (And although it is not mentioned in existing legislation, it is worth noting that to the best of our knowledge, the Adoption Board has, since it's inception, always included at least one adoptive parent).

Hanafin's Bill was deeply flawed and is completely unacceptable. While it is being used as the starting point for discussion, it will require major and substantial changes before adopted people will accept it — as a minimum, the flaws identified above must be removed.

This has been made worse by the fact that as at the time of writing this page (28th June), hard copies of the various documents have still not been sent to all (any?) interested parties. While they were made available on the Department's website, the press coverage of the announcement of the consultation has been less than widespread. Furthermore, we are aware that an e-mail notification to interested parties sent by the Department contained several invalid addresses — we had to inform the Department of their error!

Our principle concern is that the "Adoption Information, Post-Adoption Contact and Associated Issues Proposals, 2003" document is essentially the unaltered set of proposals originally introduced by Mary Hanafin in 2001, and was already rejected by adopted people for the reasons outlined here. Indeed, we have already received an assurance from the current Minister, Brian Lenihan, TD, that he would not proceed with this legislation due to our opposition — the very reason the new consultation is being held.

Our objection is not that the proposals have finally been made public. At least that finally allows everyone to see how Draconian and unworkable they are. Rather, it is the fact that nowhere is it stated that the "proposals" are not being proceeded with and represent only a starting point for discussion.

In addition, the discussion document contains several ommissions and misinformation, which we wish to clarify here. These items are as follows...

Page 6: "Trends in adoption" offers statistics on numbers of adoptions, percentages of births outside marriage, and the increase in the number of foreign adoptions (relatively speaking — there were only 391 foreign adoptions recognized in 2001).

Yet despite the dwindling numbers availing of domestic adoption and relatively tiny numbers availing of foreign adoption, compared to those seeking post-adoption reunion or just information (which number in the thousands!), the piece finishes with just a single line on such requests: "Finally there has been a significant growth in enquiries from people who have been affected by the adoption process and who wish to trace their birth relatives."

No statistics are provided. We must ask — why is this the case? Statistics are available — please see the Adoption Board's website and look at their annual reports.

Recent reports clearly demonstrate that the biggest growth area in adoption is in the post-adoption, search and reunion field. Why is the discussion document so quiet on this?

Page 21: The text refers to the Supreme Court case of I.O'T. and M.H. vs. RGAS (1998). It is materially incorrect to state that:

"These cases involved proceedings seeking declaratory relief relating to the natural parentage of two adopted children."

I.O'T and M.H. were not adopted people — they had been in long-term foster care and no adoption order had ever been signed in their cases.

This case was used as one of the many excuses to delay the introduction of adoption information laws for several years — despite the fact that it had nothing to do with legal adoption. As in the case of a fostered person, these people would have assumed the family name that raised them. Their identities were never legally changed. The problem was that an adoption agency was involved in their placement, and through denial, obstruction and practice and procedure again disputed their entitlement until they had no choice but to resort to the courts.

It is interesting to note that this case was also referred to in the prior "consultation" held by Mary Hanafin, T.D. In that instance, background information sent to interested parties included the text of the dissenting judgment (which held that information should not be released). The background material did not include nor refer to the four other judgments, which found in favour of the appellants being given the information they sought!

Page 22: This page refers to another court case Odi&#egrave;vre v. France, a recent case heard by the European Court of Human Rights. We are puzzled as to the reasons for its inclusion. This case was heard to decide on a point of French law. Odièvre had been abandoned by her mother, who, under a French law absolutely guaranteeing the right of complete confidentiality, had signed a declaration seeking such anonymity. This was under a measure brought in after World War 2 to protect those who had been in relationships with occupying German forces during the war. There is no corresponding law in Ireland. It is a complete and utter 'red herring' to suggest it may have relevance here.

Also on page 22: We dispute the statement that:

"The proposals on information in the Bill embody the best international practice and take into account the wishes of all those involved in that consultative process."

If this had been the case, we would not have rejected the proposed legislation in the first place! (Click here for the reasons why we did so). Further, the Minister would not have given us an assurance that he would not introduce this Bill!

On the contrary to the above statement, it is the belief of AdoptionIreland/the Adopted Peoples Association that where the views of service users (adopted people and natural parents) differed from those of service providers (adoption agencies), the voices of the service users were ignored. If anything else were the case, no objection would have been made to the proposals, and there would be no need for the current consultation, except to improve services, de-register the agencies and advise that adult and children issues in adoption required a separation.

So that nobody need go into the Oral Round of the Consultation 'blind', we have already published out own submission and that of the Adoption Board (which is also available from their website).

We have now obtained copies of almost every written submission from organisations, sent in to the Written Round of the Consultation and again, in the spirit of openness, honesty and transparency and so that nobody need go into the Oral Round 'blind', we are making those submissions available here.

Two types of submissions were obtained.

Electronic submissions were made available to us by the Department either in Microsoft Word format or as forwarded e-mails. E-mails were transferred to Microsoft Word documents without any other change being made. No changes were made to documents received in Word format, except that for reasons of clarity, the actual names of the documents were changed to that of the submitting organisation.

Hardcopy submissions were available only in printed paper form. We have scanned these documents using Optical Character Reading (OCR) software and saved them in Microsoft Word format. We realise that this is far from ideal — OCR software tends not to be terribly accurate. It will misinterpret certain characters and as a result spelling mistakes have crept in and numbers quoted may not be accurate. Sadly, this is unavoidable. No changes were made to correct these mistakes. Again, the names of these documents were saved under the name of the submitting organisation. We apologise for the quality of these documents but it was unavoidable and not the fault of the submitting organisations.

Other things to note:

The Adoption Board's submission differs from that on their website. We have included both here for the sake of completeness.

The Barnardos document was referred to as a draft in the document name when we received it. We have maintained that.

We have included the submission made by Mari Steed in her role as U.S. Co-ordinator for AdoptionIreland.

We have not included the submission from Clann Western Regional Adoption Service/the Western Health Board. Their submission consisted partly of handwritten notes which made it impossible to scan.

In all cases, to open a Word document in your browser, just click on the name of the submitting organisation below. To save the document to your hard disk, right-click and choose 'Save' or 'Save As'.

We have also collated the documents into two WinZip files — again, right-click on the appropriate link below and choose 'Save' or 'Save As'. All files have been virus-checked and reported as uninfected.

Update 11th October 2003:

The Natural Parents Network of Ireland have forwarded their submission, which is available under 'Electronic format documents' below. It is not included in the zip file. In addition, they have made the following statement:

"Note: Saturday 11th October 2003

This Submission has been re-presented unchanged, four years later, to the Department of Health and Children for their current Consultation Process 2003.

We refused to submit a new Submission because we were extremely angered by the almost total rejection of our views in the previous Consultation Process 1999.

Finally, having read the Submissions made by other organizations on this very valuable website (and much credit is due to the Adopted Peoples Association), we lament the total lack of any reference made by private Adoption Agencies and the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies to the pain, distress and suffering endured both by adopted people and their natural mothers (and fathers) at their hands.

Bernie Harold, Chairperson, Natural Parents Network of Ireland.

E: info@adoptionloss.ie W: www.adoptionloss.ie Post: PO Box 6714, Dublin 4."

Adoption Board (as per their website)

Adoption Board (as submitted to the Department)

Adoption Crossroads (United States)

AFPAI

BAAF (British Association for Adoption & Fostering) (United Kingdom)

Barnardos (indicated as draft)

Catholic Children's Society (Arundel) (United Kingdom)

Catholic Children's Society (Westminster) (United Kingdom)

Cherish

Council for the Status of the Family

Council of Irish Adoption Agencies

Crisis Pregnancy Agency

Daughters of Charity Fostering Initiative

International Adoption Association (Main submission)

International Adoption Association (Document on age-limits)

Irish Association of Social Workers

Linc

Mari Steed (AdoptionIreland US Co-ordinator)

Midland Health Board (Main submission)

Midland Health Board (Document outlining differences of opinion between their operational areas)

Midland International Adoption Group

Mid-Western Health Board

National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism

Natural Parents Network of Ireland

Natural Parents Network (United Kingdom) [e-mail]

North Eastern Health Board

North Western Health Board

South East Post Adoption Network (United Kingdom)

South Western Area Health Board Intercountry Adoption Service

Southern Health Board

St. Attracta's Adoption Society

St. Mura's Adoption Society [e-mail]

St. Patrick's Guild (Document on Hague)

St. Patrick's Guild (Document on post-adoption information & services)

Thai Adoption Group

The Responsible Society

Young Fine Gael [e-mail]

Scanned submissions

Zipped scanned OCR submissions (16 documents)

Adoptive Parents Association of Ireland

Children's Rights Alliance

Children's Society Services Ltd (United Kingdom)

Cunamh

Department of Social and Family Affairs

Equality Authority

Irish-Chinese Contact Group

Irish Family Planning Association

Irish Fostercare Association

National Children's Office

National Steering Committee on Adoption

PACT

Parent Network for the Post-Institutionalised Child

Parents of Adopted Romanian Children

Treoir