A group representing some 44,000 adopted people wants changes to proposals for adoption law reform which they say would criminalise them.AdoptionIreland is opposed to Government proposals to allow parents to prevent their adopted children from contacting them by signing up to a National Contact Veto Register.
Under the proposals, both adult adopted people and parents involved in adoptions in the past could choose this veto option. This would allow them not to be contacted by the other party for renewable five-year periods.
The provisions, which have been published to allow consultation on them, would make it an offence for people to attempt to contact or harass a person who has lodged a contact veto.
The clause was proposed to meet the concerns of parents who say they had been guaranteed confidentiality when they put forward their children for adoption. The veto provision would only work retrospectively.
However, AdoptionIreland said the ethos of the proposed provision was based on protecting people from contact, which suggests that this was a negative development. Its spokesman, Mr Anton Sweeney, said contact between parents and adopted people was generally positive for both parties and was part of a healing process. He said the contact veto proposals were unworkable and had extremely negative connotations, particularly by "criminalising adopted people" for breaching them.
The Government's legislative proposals have been published as part of a consultation paper on wider adoption law reform which the Department of Health and Children has sought submissions on. The Minister for Children, Mr Brian Lenihan, recently secured Government approval to publish the proposed legal changes, which had been approved by the Government prior to the last election.
Mr Lenihan said 39 written submissions have been received to date. The deadline for the submissions expired yesterday, but he was happy to extend it, he added.
He said he would meet interested groups in the autumn to discuss their concerns.
"I am going to listen to their concerns and I agree that in general it is most desirable that children should be able to trace and make contact with their mothers, but it is a very sensitive area and some mothers were promised confidentiality so we have to be careful and balance the interests of mothers and children," he said.