The National Adoption Contact Preference Register (NACPR), run by the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI), was introduced in 2005 to enable contact between adopted people and their birth relatives.

The vast majority of the almost 15,000 adopted people and natural parents on the national adoption tracing register will have to reapply to be added to the Government’s planned new register.

For those of us who have been involved in adoption activism over the past two decades, it often feels as though the Government is engaged in a war of attrition against adopted people, writes Claire McGettrick.

The Children’s Minister’s failure thus far to consult us about the Adoption Bill, which is being rushed, adds insult to decades of injury, says Claire McGettrick

The new Bill “pushes to the boundaries” and represents “a major step forward” she told RTE radio’s Morning Ireland.

A spokesperson for the Adoption Rights Alliance has said that the proposal that adopted men and women will no longer be forced to sign an “undertaking” saying they won’t contact their natural parents in order to get access to their birth cert information “doesn’t mean a hell of a lot.”

The State is “perpetuating the abuse” suffered by victims of forced and illegal adoptions by refusing to grant adopted people full access to their personal files and birth records.

Official Ireland took its time, and Magdalene Laundry survivors had to wait far too long for acknowledgement as well as an apology, the justice minister has admitted.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has apologised to Magdalene laundry survivors and pledged that the Government will address in full gaps, delays or disputes over their struggle for justice.

Adoption campaigners want an immediate inquiry into the scale of illegal adoptions — a call they have repeatedly made for years.

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Let down yet again, ageing survivors of the Magdalene laundries have suffered unnecessary pain in the past few years, writes Claire McGettrick.

Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald says the gender pay gap is “unacceptable in this day and age” and that the Constitution is not the place to deal with reproductive rights.

The National Women's Council of Ireland will today present a special award to honour women and children who were kept in religious-run, state-funded institutions.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and her department have been accused of misleading the UN by claiming the McAleese report made “no finding” in relation to State liability with regard to Magdalene Laundries.

Concern has been expressed that any evidence given to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission is not admissible in any future criminal proceedings.

Excavations at other mother and baby homes are being demanded after the discovery of “significant quantities” of infant remains at Tuam.

Adoption groups have called for “a full criminal investigation” into the alteration of files relating to vaccine trials at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home.

People who lived or worked in 27 County Homes will not be able to give evidence to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission.

The Government has offered no concrete timeframe for a new law to allow adopted people to access their birth information — almost a year after a bill was introduced last summer.

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

The McAleese report is “neither accurate nor respectful” in the suffering women endured in Magdalene laundries, it has been claimed.

Over 1,000 adopted people are languishing on waiting lists, seeking a service to help them discover their natural relatives.

A group of dentists has hit out at what it claims is the Government’s “failure to honour” promises made to Magdalene laundry survivors on medical care.

The Bishop of Cork and Ross has backed the calls of campaigners to make the vandalised mass grave of Magdalene women at Sunday’s Well accessible to the public.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has reiterated that An Grianán “served a different purpose” to High Park Magdalene laundry — despite HSE evidence stating they were “one and the same thing”.

The Ombudsman has been criticised for its “bizarre” reasoning in refusing to uphold appeals from former residents of An Grianán seeking access to the Magdalene redress scheme.

There has been a mixed response to the Government’s planned legislation on adoption, information, and tracing.

The HSE will reissue medical cards sent to Magdalene survivors after complaints they identified the women as having been in a laundry.

Magdalene laundry survivors have been told they can still apply for redress and avail of special medical cards.

Just 72 of the almost 500 Magdalene survivors who have accepted redress will get the maximum amount of €100,000.

Over 1,600 women died in Magdalene laundries — more than double the figure cited by the McAleese report.

Children’s minister James Reilly has said he is “confident” the planned mother and baby home inquiry will have the support of “those most centrally involved”.

Campaigners have called for vaccine trials to be included in the upcoming mother and baby home inquiry, after it emerged a previously unknown fifth trial was carried out on children here in the 1960s.

The Government was “conscious of the danger” of offering redress for Magdalene survivors just months before setting up the McAleese inquiry to investigate the issue.

Magdalene women are being forced accept smaller compensation payments because the State believes the religious orders over survivors regarding how long they spent in the laundries.

Many adopted people believe that successive governments have refused to offer basic tracing and information rights until most victims of Ireland’s forced and illegal adoptions have died.

Some 186 survivors of the Magdalene laundries are now receiving payments under the Government’s new redress scheme.

A grave just discovered by the Justice for Magdalenes group shows that, in one plot in North Dublin alone, a third of the woman buried remained at the Magdalene laundry for more than 50 years.

This week, I visited a grave at Glasnevin Cemetery, which is maintained by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the order that ran Magdalene Laundries at High Park and Gloucester/Sean McDermott St. For 11 years I have made this journey, but this occasion was different, because I witnessed the grave being opened by the grounds staff. This shock was followed by the realisation another former Magdalene woman had died while in the care of the nuns.

There is no reason for us to believe that the mother-and-baby homes investigation will change anything, even if the State apologises, writes Susan Lohan

Will Ireland do right by all those it has failed? asks Claire McGettrick.