As Minister, it would not be appropriate for me to instruct the Adoption Authority of Ireland to use the Contact Preference Register to issue correspondence with information about the Mother and Baby Home Payment Scheme.
The Birth Information and Tracing Act was signed into law on 30 June 2022. The Act provides for the release of birth, early life, care, and medical information to persons who were adopted, boarded out or nursed out, subject to an illegal birth registration, or resided in a mother and baby home or county home as a child, known in the legislation as a relevant person. A statutory Contact Preference Register was established under the Act in July 2022 to enable people to register their wishes in relation to contact with family and to provide contact details, other information and items for sharing with specified family members. (In keeping with the requirement in Section 42 (3) of the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022, the National Adoption Contact Preference Register, to which you refer, was deleted in November 2022, with all entries being transferred to the new statutory Contract Preference Register.)
It is important to note that the Contact Preference Register is available to all categories of relevant persons listed under the 2022 Act, and not just to those who spent time in a mother and baby home. Birth relatives – including parents, siblings, uncles and aunts – and adoptive parents are also eligible to state their contact preferences on the Register. Contacting all of those on the Contact Preference Register with information about the Mother and Baby Home Payment Scheme would cause a number of people to receive unsolicited contact about a scheme for which they would not be eligible.
Furthermore, the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 provides that any entry in the Contact Preference Register is made with the consent of the person registering for the purpose of enabling the Adoption Authority of Ireland to perform its functions under Part 6 of the Act. Applicants must be advised of this legal basis for the processing of their personal data before an entry is made on the Contact Preference Register.
The Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023 provides financial payments and health supports to eligible persons in recognition of the circumstances experienced while resident in mother and baby and county home institutions in Ireland. The issuing of communications about the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023 to people on the Contact Preference Register would constitute ‘further processing’ under GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) and is thus prohibited. Further processing is only provided for in case of national security/defence, criminal investigations/prosecutions, or legal proceedings under Sections 41 and 47 of the Data Protection Act 2018.
Under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023, it is the Chief Deciding Officer of the scheme, who performs her functions independently of the Minister, who is mandated to make efforts relating to raising awareness of the scheme among the public. To date, two media campaigns have been undertaken, in April and November 2024 to raise public awareness about the Mother and Baby Payment Scheme both in Ireland and abroad. There is also an information booklet and website available to people who are seeking information about the payment scheme. Further details are available at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/2938d-the-mother-and-baby-institutions-payment-scheme/
My Department also maintains a substantial mailing list of all those who wish to be kept informed on implementation of the Action Plan for Survivors and Former Residents of Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions. Regular information updates, including in relation to the Payment Scheme, are issued to this mailing list.
