6.1 The Commission's findings showed that despite the success of the contact veto system there remained considerable anxiety, and in some cases anger, about the Act. Part of the explanation for these concerns may be lack of appreciation of the rights created by the Act and the way the Act has actually operated, and the general sensitive approach of those obtaining information. But the anxiety is well founded for the minority of persons who will find contact a negative experience. It is also linked with the understandable feeling of many adoptive parents, and some adoptees and birth parents, that the Act is unfair to those who believe that when they become involved in adoption they had been promised that the identity of the parties would remain secret.
6.2 In this section the Commission summarises three recommendations intended to provide a degree of relief and protection for those who see the information rights created by the Act as intruding unjustifiably on their privacy. Two of the recommendations involve minor qualifications to the information rights created by the Act. In the Commission's view this qualification is warranted by the considerable relief that the recommedations will provide for those who are identified by birth certificates and identifying information supplied under the Act.
AN ADOPTION INFORMATION EXCHANGE
6.3 The Commission recommends that there should be an Adoption Information Exchange, administered on similar lines to the existing Reunion Information Register. People who wish to have a degree of control or influence over the behaviour of the information recipients ("searchers") would have the opportunity to place a message, addressed to the relevant searcher, on the Adoption Information Exchange. The system would allow for messages to be left not only by the birth parents and adopted people, but also by adoptive parents and relatives of each of the parties directly involved. Messages left on the Information Exchange would not in any way affect legal rights. For that reason, they would not alter the basic principles of the Act. In the Commission's view, however, the system would have considerable potential to reduce the amount of anxiety often associated with the exercise of information rights under the Act by facilitating communication between people before contact is made.
6.4 The system could be used by all the relevant parties for a variety of purposes. A message form an adoptee, for example, might be made to the effect that he or she would like the searching birth parent to make contact discreetly by telephoning a particular number or leaving a letter at a post box. Adoptive parents might leave a message to the effect that an adopted person was studying for Higher School Certificate examinations and requesting that the searcher delay any contact for some period. Again, adoptive parents might ask that the searchers should contact them before contacting the adopted person to give them an opportunity to explain to the adopted person that he or she has been adopted; they might alternatively, wish to stay out the transaction and might give the searcher the adopted person's current name and address and encourage the searcher to make direct contact with the adopted person. Birth parents, too, might use explain that she has not told her husband and other members of her family, and would prefer that no contact be made at all. She might, however, add some information that would be of importance to the searching adopted person, such as the reasons that she signed the consent for adoption. More commonly, perhaps, the birth parent might ask the searching adopted person to make contact in a particular way that would not disclose to other members of the family the fact that she had given up a child for adoption many years previously.
6.5 The possibility of adoptive parents leaving messages on this system is an important advantage. Earlier in this Summary Report, the Commission noted that the retrospectivity of the Act has caused difficulties for those who organised their affairs on the basis that adoption would provide a guarantee of secrecy. Although in the Commission's view this fact does not require any change in the basic principles of the Act, it does justify measures designed to protect the privacy rights of those involved to the extent that such measures can be devised consistently with those basic principles. It is clear that many of the adoptive parents that have spoken to the Commission would have benefited from such a system as is proposed.
AN ADVANCED NOTICE SYSTEM
6.6 The Commission also proposes a second mechanism designed to reduce the anxiety arising out of access to identifying adoption information. This is a system that would allow persons who were anxious about being identified or contacted to ensure that they had prior notice of any access to information. We propose that it should be possible for a birth parent, an adopted person or and adoptive parent to ledge and "Advance Notice Application". Such an application would be noted on a register by FIS and also at the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the same way as a contact veto. When an application was made for the relevant birth certificate the applicant would be informed that an advance notice request was in force and the release of the certificate or information would be delayed by a fixed period, say two months (or whatever other period is determined). At the same time, the person who requested advance notice would be told that access to the birth certificate had been sought and the certificate would be released at the end of the period. This system would give the persons named on the certificate to be released or their relatives prior warning of its release. It would allow them to take whatever steps they wished to take during that period. They might tell the members of their family about the situation in a way that would be less traumatic for them than if the searcher contacted them without prior notice. They might seek an order for the Guardianship Board to lodge a contact veto on behalf of the person unable to lodge it themselves.
6.7 As with the recommendations for an adoption Information Exchange, this proposal includes adoptive parents and is intended to relieve anxiety on their part, as well as on the part of adopted persons and birth parent who would prefer not to be contacted without prior notice. Unlike the Adoption Information Exchange proposal, it does involve a small qualification on the rights of the recipient of identifying information, in that it delays the person's access to the information by two months. In the Commission's view this small modification of the rights of adoptees and birth parents is not too high a price to pay for the considerable easing of anxiety that this system might provide to a number of persons about whom information is released. In particular, it may be that adoptive parents who have not told the adopted person of their adoptive status would find this system attractive.
DISCRETIONARY POWER TO REFUSE BIRTH CERTIFICATES
6.8 It has been noted earlier that the Commission found no reason to overturn the basic principles of the Act, and for this reason does not recommend that there should be a right of prevent the issue of a birth certificate or the release of prescribed information.
6.9 It has been proposed by the Department of Community Services that in a very limited class of exceptional cases, however, there should be a discretionary power to limit access to identifying information. The Commission agrees, and recommends that there should be provision for identifying information to be withheld in exceptional circumstances, at the discretion of the Director-General, where it can be demonstrated that such a measure is necessary to prevent serious harm. It would also be possible for the Director-General to make more qualified orders; for example that the supply of information be deferred, or that counselling be required. It is essential that the exercise of this power should be subject to review, and the Commission proposes that there be an appeal by any person affected by an exercise of the Director-General's discretion in this regard to the Community Welfare Appeals Tribunal.
