I have been an adoption activist, advocate and researcher for the past twenty years. I’m also adopted. I do not speak about my private life, but I’m about to make an exception to that rule.

Committee Stage of the Birth (Information and Tracing) Bill began on 2nd March and concluded late in the evening of 9th March. By the end of the final debate, I was devastated. Minister Roderic O’Gorman had refused to accept any of the 300-plus amendments submitted by opposition TDs, most of which were drafted by me.

Since its publication on 12th January, I had worked full-time on the Bill on a voluntary basis, speaking in the media, raising awareness, and, most importantly, drafting amendments and writing an accompanying Briefing Note with Loughlin O’Nolan of Article Eight Advocacy. Although I had worked non-stop, I almost ran out of time — it’s only when you drill down into it that you realise just how labyrinthine and discriminatory this Bill actually is.

I worked as hard as I did since January because I can’t bear the thought of there being a law which says in effect that adopted people do not understand privacy. Adopted people already make themselves small, setting aside their own feelings in ways that most people could never imagine. We’ve done nothing wrong.

Roderic O’Gorman’s Bill makes us smaller. If enacted, it will enshrine adopted people as less than our non-adopted counterparts in law.

Yet the Minister acts as if he is doing us a favour. Just this week he persisted in his characterisation of the Bill as:

…landmark legislation, which provides guaranteed access in all cases to un-redacted birth certificates and identity information.

This is patently untrue. An adopted person whose parent has registered a preference for no contact will have to attend a mandatory Information Session about privacy before their birth certificate or birth information is given to them.

When the Minister was asked in a parliamentary question what would happen if an adopted person refused to attend an Information Session he effectively admitted that in this situation the birth certificate would not be released:

Where an information session is required and a relevant person chooses to abstain, the person can still make a subject access request. That application will then be considered in accordance with the GDPR.

This does not constitute ‘guaranteed access in all cases to un-redacted birth certificates and identity information’.

This Bill is also in breach of EU law; if passed it will restrict affected people’s rights to their personal data under the GDPR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Bill re-defines information and State officials will choose what records to release from different categories. The Minister insists that the definitions under these categories are not exhaustive, but this won’t prevent personal data from being withheld. These categories of information are open to a range of interpretations and data controllers in this area already have a poor record. Moreover, a significant number of affected people are excluded from accessing records under this legislation. For example, there is no mechanism for mothers and relatives to access information unless the children in question died in certain institutions.

These examples are just a few of the many issues with the Bill.

Nonetheless, throughout Committee Stage the Minister insisted that many amendments were unnecessary because the issues of concern were already covered in the Bill (they aren’t) or that certain amendments would restrict the information released (they wouldn’t). I’m not a TD, so all I could do was watch the debates with increasing frustration as the Minister repeatedly maintained that black was white.

Word on the ground is that the Minister is determined to get this Bill passed. I saw this first-hand at Committee Stage. I looked on in sheer terror as over 300 amendments were rapidly voted down one by one, the realisation hitting me that despite how hard we have worked, a Bill that makes things worse might be enacted after all.

In the days that followed, the impact sank in and my health deteriorated. I’d already been suffering with migraines but now I was waking up in the middle of the night with them. I also began to experience other worrying symptoms, so I contacted my GP and he sent me to A&E. I learned that my blood pressure was so high it was in the range where it could have led to a stroke. I spent a sleepless night on a hospital trolley, worrying about the additional tests they were going to perform on me the next day and wondering how the hell I ended up in this position.

The following morning a CT scan came back normal and I was sent home on medication. I feel like I have dodged a massive bullet.

Since January, family and friends had been expressing concern that I was doing too much, that I was putting my health at risk. But I’m adopted, I live this — it’s not a nine to five job for me. I don’t get to walk away. I told myself that I couldn’t possibly leave anything in the tank. How could I live with myself if I didn’t try everything humanly possible? But I forgot that leaving nothing in the tank could kill me.

I prioritised fighting this Bill over my own wellbeing and that’s on me. But the factors that led me to work so hard? That’s on the State.

It’s not just that the Bill itself is abhorrent; it’s how the State has conducted itself — blatantly ignoring us when we say this Bill will do more harm than good (while simultaneously claiming to take our concerns on board), compartmentalising affected people, disregarding the expertise of respected advocates. And, rushing the Bill through the Oireachtas: the Minister published the Bill just one Dáil working week after the Children’s Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny recommendations had issued. Committee Stage was scheduled to happen only twelve Dáil working days after the Bill passed Second Stage (ultimately it was delayed because of the volume of amendments). Second Stage of the Institutional Burials Bill was held on the same day that Committee Stage of the Information and Tracing Bill finally began. It’s difficult to interpret this conduct as anything other than an attempt to dilute our already depleted energies.

This is not an isolated case. Every day I see activists from other marginalised groups, also exhausted and demoralised by the tactics of the State.

If the Bill is enacted in its current format, it will represent a giant step backwards for equality in Ireland. That is a certainty. But for the sake of my own wellbeing I will have to do less and it will have to be enough.

That said, I’m not going anywhere. I’m putting my health first but I will continue to work on this Bill. If we lose this and the legislation is enacted without the necessary amendments, rest assured that amongst other things, we will show people how to bypass the legislation (for example, adopted people can already get their birth certificates). And we will continue to fight for equality.

Another thing is for certain: if Minister O’Gorman refuses to remove the discriminatory elements from this Bill, he (not his civil servants) will find himself on the wrong side of history.

Thankfully he still has time to ensure that does not happen.