Senators will debate a new bill on the rights of adopted people in Ireland today.

If passed, the proposals would mean up to 50,000 people are able to get their birth cert for the first time.

Parents and adopted children would also be able to put on record whether they wanted their information shared with each other.

Susan Lohan from the Adoption Rights Alliance says some privacy concerns arose but their legal advice is that a person's right to identity is recognised in the constitution:

This morning, Susan joined Shane Coleman and Ivan Yates on Newstalk Breakfast. Here is her interview in full:

Under the measures, the adoption authority would also act as an agency if parents and children wanted to contact each other.

Similar legislation has been in Scotland since the 1930s, England and Wales since the 1970s and Northern Ireland since 1987.

Fianna Fáil Senator Averil Power - herself an adoptee - says the bill they have published balances rights of all concerned.

She also says that she has received letters from other adopted people.

"Adopted people in England have had a legal right to their birth certs, listing their original names and those of their birth mothers, since 1975. Forty years later, Irish adoptees still don't have this right.”