TRESSA Reeves never asked for anything for herself. All she ever wanted was for her son to be told the truth of who he was, writes Conall Ó Fátharta. It was a selfless act of a woman and a mother. A woman and mother ignored year after year by every State agency she asked to help her.

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.

TRESSA REEVES was born Teresa Mary Donnelly in England to an Irish father and an English mother.