IRELAND
Irish Independent
John Downing and Ralph Riegel
CHILDREN’S Minister Charlie Flanagan is to extend adopted children’s rights to allow them to seek information about their birth parents. New draft legislation is to be published within a month.
It has also emerged that the upcoming mother and baby home inquiry is expected to seek crucial documentation from US immigration authorities and three American archdioceses over ‘secret’ adoptions in the 1930s and 1940s.
Mr Flanagan wants to have an outline of the Adoption Information and Tracing Bill published before the Dail summer recess in late July. “I take the view that a person’s name and identity are fundamental rights. Everybody must be entitled in law to as much information as is possible,” Mr Flanagan told the Irish Independent.
The draft law was promised for last year but experts have warned about a conflict over the right to privacy for birth parents who do not wish to reveal their identity.
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