Introduction Rediscovering parents and children has often been described as highly rewarding. If a parent does not wish to raise a child is acceptable, but their identity should be discoverable. There should be no compulsion to know who your parents really are, and there may perhaps sometimes be risks involved in knowing, but the choice should always be there and it can only be the child’s choice when they are of age. It would be wrong for either set of parents to make this choice in advance on the child’s behalf. Additionally, increasingly DNA samples are used to predict and treat genetic diseases, for which information on family medical background will need to be known. Otherwise, children who do not know their parents will be medically disadvantaged. A family medical history can identify people with a higher-than-usual chance of having common disorders, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, certain cancers, and diabetes. These complex disorders are influenced by a combination of genetic factors, environmental conditions, and lifestyle choices. In this essay we will discuss how gaining knowledge of one’s genetic origins in Ireland, whether a person has been adopted or donor-conceived, has been problematic. We will present a brief outline of present law regarding both adoption and donor-conceived children, along with changes proposed through the new Children’s and Family Relations Bill, in an effort to understanding how this new Bill can enhance the efforts of those who wish to seek their fundamental right of their genetic identity. Adoption Ireland has largely operated a closed adoption system, making it extremely difficult to obtain identifying information on one’s natural parents and correspondingly on one’s adopted child. Since the introduction of adoption laws in Ireland in 1952 more than 42,000 children were put up for adoption with a further number registered as if born to their adoptive parents (known as “de facto adoptions”)1. Ireland has a poor record in handling adoption in the past with most unmarried pregnant women consigned to State-funded Mother and Baby homes or religious-run homes, where they were pressurized into giving up their children for adoption. Many have never made contact with their children again or likewise the children with their mother or father. Under present laws an adopted person is, in effect, denied access to his or her original birth certificate. This practice was shaped by the prevailing views and attitudes of the 50’s and it reflects the determination of those times to impose confidentiality and anonymity. One case, I O’T vs B, set out to challenge this confidentiality and anonymity. I. O’T. & M.H. were two adult women (informally adopted in 1941 and 1951) who sought the release of all documents concerning their births, identities of their natural mothers and their placing from the Rotunda Girls Aid Society and a Fr Gerard Doyle. Subsequently, the Supreme Court judgement stated that the child has an un-enumerated constitutional right to know the identity of his/her natural parents. However, the court outlined that this right was not absolute and had to be balanced against the natural mother’s right to privacy and anonymity. The court went on to suggest a list of questions for consideration of a circuit judge in this balancing of the child verses the mother’s right, which included; the present circumstances of the natural mother and the effect thereon (if any) of the disclosure of her identity to her child; the attitude of the na