Here's your morning bulletin.

The Adoption Authority (AAI) sent three reports on illegal birth registrations — including a spreadsheet of 90 cases — to the Department of Children in 2015, three years before the St Patrick’s Guild scandal.

Despite protesting otherwise, the State knew about the practice of illegal adoption for years, with Tressa Reeves gathering evidence of her son’s illegal registration in 1997 and the authorities informed in 2001, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

The Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) reported at least one case of an illegal birth registration to the DPP and gardaí as far back as 2002.

Former Tánaiste Joan Burton has called for the Government to lift the veil of secrecy on birth details and adoptions to allow people access their personal histories.

Leo Varadkar has claimed that “what’s different” about the latest revelations in relation to St Patrick’s Guild is that this is the first time we have found “documentary evidence” of such cases.

The revelation that potentially thousands of people may have had their births falsified so they could be illegally adopted may have profound legal consequences — including for inheritance rights.

The Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) has said it was “not aware” that a formerly accredited adoption agency owned an unmarked grave in which children were buried as late as 1990.

Adoption campaigners have queried why the Mother and Baby Homes Commission has taken three years to issue a public call for information relating to the burials of children who died at the Bessborough home.

Tusla, the child and family agency, is telling adopted people who need a search to be undertaken for relatives in Britain that they will have to pay for the service.

There were 6,309 children in care in Ireland at the end of February this year, with 5,822 of these being in foster care, it has been revealed.

Adopted people are being stigmatised in the same manner as their mothers were, decades before, with the Government’s proposed new information and tracing legislation.

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission has refused to confirm whether or not it contacted the Adoption Authority (AAI) about a section in its second interim report dealing with illegal birth registrations.

The language and scope of the Mother and Baby Home Commission is questionable, says Conall Ó Fátharta

A welcome and positive development in the best interest of children: that’s the Children’s Rights Alliance response to Ireland’s agreement on inter-country adoption with the Philippines.

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission has yet to decide whether to ask for an extension of its remit to examine other institutions.

The head of Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, said he is “sympathetic” to points of concern raised by social workers in relation to proposed procedures for dealing with allegations of child abuse and neglect.

The Children and Family Relationships Act will remain on the statute books whether or not Irish people vote yes to same-sex marriage on May 22. This piece of legislation allows for adoption by same-sex couples and provides for guardianship. The referendum will seek to add the following clause to our Constitution:“Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”

A group representing birth mothers is to challenge the process used to establish the Mother-and-Baby Home inquiry in the High Court.

The Government excluded an adoption agency from the mother-and-baby home inquiry despite being told almost two years ago that it had knowledge of “several hundred” illegal birth registrations.

Children’s Minister James Reilly yesterday published the terms of reference for an inquiry called on for many years to no avail.

The terms of reference for the mother-and-baby home inquiry will be published following the first Cabinet meeting in the new year.

Our outdated adoption laws must be changed to give people the right to their identity and treat everyone with the respect that they deserve writes Adoption Rights Alliance, Dr Aisling Parkes and Dr Simone McCaughren

Adoption rights campaigners have said that allowing natural mothers a veto on contact would set back tracing rights "more than a decade".

Adoption campaigners have slammed the Government’s repeated delays in offering basic tracing and information rights to adopted people and natural parents as "Groundhog Day".

The head of the Adoption Authority is insisting there is no upper age limit for those who want to adopt in Ireland.

The Adoption Authority has said there is no upper age limit for those who want to adopt in Ireland.

Thousands of Irish people "must have been" illegally adopted, with many taken out of the country, the Adoption Authority (AAI) has admitted.

Politicians, many of whom admitted to being heavily lobbied by prospective adoptive parents, have locked horns with children’s rights groups and the Adoption Authority over the sharp drop in children available for intercountry adoption.

Former children’s minister Frances Fitzgerald has admitted she read a dossier in 2011 calling for an inquiry into mother-and-baby homes, vaccine trials and illegal adoptions.

The order which ran the mother-and-baby home in Bessborough in Cork initially refused to transfer files relating to controversial vaccine trials to the HSE.

No full-scale audit has ever been carried out into tens of thousands of files given to the State by the religious orders which ran Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes.

The Bishop of Cork and Ross has joined the Archbishop of Dublin in calling for an independent public inquiry into the deaths of children at religious-run mother-and-baby homes.

It is not the job of any Adoption Authority to “scout around” for and develop foreign adoptions from other countries in order to satisfy demand from adoptive parents.

Just months before Ireland signed an adoption agreement with the US, the Adoption Authority (AAI) admitted there were wide ranging “difficulties” with the “practice and ethics” of adoptions from Florida.

Two children have been left in “a legal limbo” because the Adoption Authority of Ireland refuses to recognise their overseas adoption by an Irish-based couple, the High Court has heard.

President calls on the State and institutions to provide information

Just 1% of an estimated 60,000 adopted people in Ireland have traced their identity through the system the Government plans to introduce on a statutory basis so adopted people and natural parents can find each other.

A campaign aimed at shaming the Irish State into opening an estimated 60,000 adoption files is gathering pace on the back of Oscar-nominated film Philomena.

A woman whose child was born as a result of a surrogacy arrangement has brought a High Court action alleging the State’s refusal to pay her maternity benefit amounts to unlawful discrimination. The Equality Authority is supporting the woman’s case.

Adopted people have hit out at “ill-informed” comments by Taoiseach Enda Kenny about the right of adopted people and natural parents to trace one another.