Former Chief Justice calls for ‘long overdue’ adoption legislation to be brought forward

Mr Keane told the Sunday Business Post that proposed legislation to give adopted people a statutory right to birth certificate information is “long overdue in this country”.

The retired judge added that similar legislation in England has not “caused any major problems” to his knowledge.

The bill is currently delayed over concern about its constitutionality and is being examined by Attorney General Séamus Wolfe SC.

As a Supreme Court justice in the 1990s, Mr Keane presided over I. O’T vs B & The Rotunda Girls Aid Society SC 260, a controversial ruling on the balance between an adopted person’s right to information and their birth mother’s right to privacy.