Tracing and the law

Hermy

Anyone listening to Liveline tooday? Right at the end Joe Duffy read out a quote from media lawyer Andrea Martin...

...it's a criminal offence under the Adoption Act 2010 to assist an adopted person tracing their birth relatives unless that assistance is given by the HSE or an accredited body...

Is this true?
Are those of us seeking what is ours and ours alone committing crimes by searching for our families?
Are Boards, Facebook, Ancestry, libraries, the GRO and many others accessories to those crimes?
If so the lunatics really have taken over the asylum!

The_Conductor

Yes its true.
And, yes, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Adopted people not only have no right to information- telling adopted people how to find information (such as our traceguide- for example), is now a criminal act.

I'm dying for someone to test this in law- I believe its in breach of at least 3 separate EU and UN charters.

Terri Kiernan

Hi Hermy/ Conductor
today Joe gave out an address for some Lady whom goes to the office on behalf of the people searching, she said there were many "search angels" that volunteer to do all the work then hand over the papers to whom ever requested them. So lets think about this madness in our law for a second, in my time they gave a private cult the power to make up their own laws as they saw fit in the name of their GOD or whatever and were allowed to take babies away from mothers sell them in some cases were the cause of young girls dying and their babies .
They were allowed bury whom ever they liked in their own back gardens and to this day they are still seen by our law as people with some sort of mystery power? because their founders manged to brain wash vulnerable people into joining their cult making it one of the most riches cults known to humankind today and ,most powerful .
I have to say is it any wonder we are called the mad Irish because we allow this to go on even today.
I wish we could go back to the days when we were a wonderful people Pagans we cared about all our people it did int matter if we were married or not, everyone welcomed a new born child and everyone wanted to help out. We loved our music our voices sang loud and we enjoyed everything that was natural about us including our bodies and we could love without shame, without feeling like a piece of dirt.

I just cannot believe we call this era progress when people are living in complete darkness about whom they are where they came from what was their gene pool etc etc down right barbaric, but without the "shame" of the cult bestowed upon us each of us would know while we might live and be loved among a bed of tulips we clearly can identify that we are a rose and still be loved and cared for and all around us being proud to show us off as a rose..

Moonbeam

ugh what a step backwards:(

Terri Kiernan

hi Moonbeam
we must not allow this to go on we need to fight back, innocent victims should be cared for and above all should have a voice.
No one should ever be robbed of their true identity ever.

schoolmouse

Lets think here for a minute and ask ourselves if the law was quoted correctly or is there a vested interest in trying to frighten people off. How can it be illegal to look at an entry in a book that is in the public domain, that's like telling us we cannot look in a telephone directory and look up the number for a person. We in Ireland like our secrets, secrets are power and certain bodies feel threatened when that power is under threat from Joe public.

The_Conductor

Its not illegal to look in the book.
Its illegal for someone to advise someone else, to look in the book......
So- it is a public record and will remain so- however, providing a step-by-step guide to how to use the public record to find information- becomes a crime.

Its pathetic.

To be honest- the 3 organisations (ourselves included) are all continuing to provide access to our trace files.

Hermy

schoolmouse wrote: »

...is there a vested interest in trying to frighten people off...

Can't help but feel there's some truth in that!

Terri Kiernan

Just how Barbaric do our politicians want to portray us as ? I cannot imagine why knowing your birth records knowing your gene pool knowing whom brought you into the world can threaten any society in fact it makes for a better society , transparency, openness, and a genuine attempt to right the wrongs of the past. If you look at when the allowance was brought into play the real correlation of the fact that children being placed for adoption dropped to the point we see couples now going abroad to adopt children. It speaks volumes of much helplessness was bestowed upon young frightened girls whom had no means of keeping their babies and also the guilt laid on them for wanting to keep them as they had no means of doing so a real catholic trap of getting beautiful healthy babies.
I t makes me sick to think they are not begging the forgiveness of all adopted people and doing everything in their power to help them. In doing so the attitude of a small minded person might be blown out of the water and natural mothers could be finally freed of their guilt and shame and lift their silence and not b afraid to come forward.
There must be something we all can do to ensure the right changes are made to put the children first they must always be the priority.
Terri

schoolmouse

Hi Terry, there is quiet a lot we can do as a people to change the law which say's that a person is not entitled to know who they are. Those of us here should be bombarding the Minister Charlie Flanagan on a daily basis with Emails demanding that the law should be changed and to give over the nonsense that it would take a referendum to do so when in fact it can be changed by the Oireachtas if the political will is there. So come on and get those Emails rolling in to all of our Politicians and demand that they make the change. The time for hiding behind the curtain is long gone, act now.