Tusla - right to contact?

alpha2

Hello,

I'm hoping someone who's familiar with state bodies and their legal responsibilities will be able to advise me about this.

My partner recently received a letter in the post from Tusla. It said that Tusla had tried to contact her mother at an address (which is in fact the mother's current address) but had received no reply, so would my partner please contact Tusla and pass on her mother's present address.

The back of the envelope was stamped with "if undelivered please return unopened to xxxx" - my partner Googled the address and it's a centre where adoption records are held.

I won't go into the ins and outs of the family situation, but it's been an upsetting experience and my partner is concerned that Tusla may be going to contact her younger siblings in the same way.

My queries are:
--if Tusla contacts someone who does not reply, are they entitled to look up that person's relatives and contact them?
--are they breaching any rights to privacy by revealing fairly obviously to family members that someone is connected to an adoption?
--do they have the right to ask for contact details to be passed on to them by a third party?

Many thanks.

Ghekko

Wow, i have no legal advice but have had dealings with TUSLA adoption agency when Dh was looking for his birth mother. I wouldn't have thought they could contact someone else with all the bloody secrecy surrounding adoption. I would hazard a guess that her mother did get the previous letters and could be freaking out if it's a thing she gave up a baby for adoption. As far as I know TUSLA will write to a person a couple of times but I was not aware of them contacting other family members. Would your partner bring it up with her mother? It might be a massive relief to her mum, or of course open a can of worms. Hard to know how to proceed but your partner should contact TUSLA and request that they don't contact any other family members. She is not obliged to give the address but if she confirms the address is correct they may well take it that her mother is not interested in what they have written about and leave it at that.

alpha2

Thanks Ghekko, good advice and will suggest to my partner. Basically, without going into too many details, there's long been a sense among my wife and her older siblings that their mother may have given up a child for adoption, but she has always flatly said no when the topic was raised, however, gently, so they've obviously respected that

My partner is pretty sure that her younger siblings don't have any idea that it's even a possibility, so she's worried Tusla may work their way down a list of the mother's children. She's also a bit worried about how Tusla would have got her (my partner's) name and address.

Anyway, thanks again!

Ghekko

I'd say they can find anyone if they want to. Maybe there is more urgency to this case. Some adoptees need medical history for example. A phone call to TUSLA might shed a bit of light and don't let her be fobbed off with secrecy given that they were the ones to contact her. She could also question how they know who she is and how they have her details.

January

Ghekko wrote: »

I'd say they can find anyone if they want to. Maybe there is more urgency to this case. Some adoptees need medical history for example. A phone call to TUSLA might shed a bit of light and don't let her be fobbed off with secrecy given that they were the ones to contact her. She could also question how they know who she is and how they have her details.

I'm sorry but nobody is entitled to medical history and I say that as someone who's husband is adopted and a child with a heart defect. Wed have loved medical history but we've been told they won't force contact with biological parents (not that we'd push but it was something we asked about). They have sent letters to the birth mother but she hasn't replied and they've said they can't do anything more.

Tbh I'd go absolutely crazy if tusla were contacting my family members to try and get me to contact them if I'd given a child up for adoption. How dare they do that without your consent.

alpha2

Thanks January - I've looked online to see if there's anything that might help my partner, but everything about Tusla is to do with birth parents contacting adopted children or adopted people contacting birth parents - couldn't see anything about Tusla having the right to contact family members and the more I think about it, the more shocked I am by the insensitivity!

The Tusla info emphasises that they use discretion and protect the right to privacy, but they seem to have forgotten that in this case and I can't see how they have the legal right to do this.

My partner feels that they have no right to use her to encourage her mother to make contact or to ask her to pass on the address - if her mother had moved, and my partner passed on the new details, it could wreck their relationship if her mother ever found out. But what really upsets her is that if she hadn't had this inkling (based on a comment from her grandmother, who's now passed away), she would have been reeling now from the shock.

Victor

alpha2 wrote: »

The back of the envelope was stamped with "if undelivered please return unopened to xxxx" - my partner Googled the address and it's a centre where adoption records are held.

Might that address be used for other things?

You might note that in many places telephone exchanges are co-located with Garda stations. Not for interception / counter-interception reasons, but because once upon a time the land was all owned by the OPW. In the present case, Tusla may be operating from an OPW property where all forms of state activity goes on.

Ghekko

January wrote: »

I'm sorry but nobody is entitled to medical history and I say that as someone who's husband is adopted and a child with a heart defect. Wed have loved medical history but we've been told they won't force contact with biological parents (not that we'd push but it was something we asked about). They have sent letters to the birth mother but she hasn't replied and they've said they can't do anything more.

I never said that there was an entitlement to medical history. I simply suggested it may be a reason for looking for contact so intently. In any case the op's partner won't know until she contacts TUSLA and asks what they want.

January

They want her to give them the mothers current address, the OP made that clear in the first post.

How dare TUSLA contact any of the mothers family to try to get her to contact them, what if they knew nothing about a sibling of theirs being placed for adoption? Imagine how much turmoil that could cause for a family.

They have absolutely no right, and may actually have breached data protection by doing this.

Ghekko

I'm sure they have breached it but she needs to contact them. I can't imagine how they can weasel their way out of this. Ops partner should play a bit dumb and not let on she has an inkling about an adopted sibling. I'd nearly go as far as saying she should freak out on the phone about this possible sibling and see how TUSLA react and worm their way out. They are so intent on keeping information from adoptees when trying to trace and yet here, for whatever reason, they are hell bent on contacting the mother by any means. I'd be interested to see how they respond. Dh's TUSLA social worker was lovely and very helpful to the point that I managed to find his birth mother before Dh was called for his first appointment.

alpha2

Thanks Ghekko and January. Glad to hear we weren't over-reacting. Yes, the fact that my partner had an inkling of the adoption saved her a lot of shock and upset, but, as I mentioned, she has siblings who are unaware of what was just a family suspicion until now, so there may be some heartache down the line. I'll post an update once she's been in contact with TUSLA. Thanks again for the help and advice.