Adoption Rights campaigner Claire McGettrick says her ‘heart sank’ when she received the PDF of her records.
Claire McGettrick WHEN IRELAND’S FIRST statutory adoption information and tracing services opened on 3 October, affected people applied in their thousands to Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland for their records.
Those who applied to the AAI were told they would receive their records within 90 days, while Tusla told some applicants that would receive their records on or before 21 December, and others that they may not receive a response until the end of January. The problem is that they were told that they would receive the records within a month, but this promise was broken at the first hurdle. I’m annoyed with myself for being disappointed because I knew this was going to happen so I’ve stupidly let myself get my hopes up only to be disappointed once again. Trust
Therefore, information officers must examine the files in search of information that is in line with numerous restrictive definitions before determining what can be released to the applicant. The group was set up with the specific purpose of ensuring the ‘successful implementation of the legislation in the interests of all those with questions on their origins’.Inexplicably however, the Minister did not see fit to appoint a single affected person to that group.
In defence of his position, he repeatedly claimed that ‘the full and complete set of records will be given to the adopted person in each and every case’.Unfortunately, I can confirm that there are redactions and records have been held back.On Tuesday of this week, I received my records from Tusla in response to my application under the new system.
I do have some of these records through GDPR and, thankfully, the number of redactions is small , but this is hardly the point. This is not what ‘landmark legislation’ is supposed to look like. Instead, the Minister has created a chaotic, multi-layered system and the number of broken promises is steadily increasing.Because of how the legislation defines information, in order to get the bare minimum of what they are entitled to , affected people will have no choice but to submit a GDPR subject access request alongside their application under the new system.
Therefore, the GDPR schedule is an important tool to help affected people ascertain whether records have been withheld from them in their applications under the new system. In fact, media reaction to how the system is working so far has been muted to say the least. The news that records were being withheld from affected people despite repeated promises from the Minister should have been one of the most discussed issues in the country yesterday.
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