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.

Tusla was recording illegal adoptions and birth registrations in 2016 — two years before the agency’s revelation that it had uncovered unlawful registrations at St Patrick’s Guild.

The Irish Examiner first wrote about Tressa Reeves in 2010. Her case sparked the first-ever audit of records by the then Adoption Board and highlighted again Ireland’s murky adoption history.

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.

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.

Amidst the tsunami of speculation about the whereabouts of the bodies of almost 800 children from the former Tuam mother-and-baby home, some sceptics have settled on the belief that 796 bodies could not be contained in this small plot of land.

Thousands of Irish women have endured the trauma of forced adoptions, writes Conall Ó Fátharta

A religious-run adoption agency, which facilitated illegal adoptions and exported more than 500 “illegitimate” children, is withdrawing its tracing and information service.

I wish to respond to the fine article written by Conall Ó Fatharta on ‘Illegal’ adoptions (Jan 14).

A major report on illegal practices in intercountry adoption has cited the Irish case of Tressa Reeves as a documented example of illegal adoption.

THE first ever audit of the Adoption Authority’s records has uncovered approximately 50 cases of illegal adoptions.

TRESSA REEVES, whose son was illegally adopted and registered as the natural child of the adoptive parents, says she has received no assistance from the Adoption Authority more than a year after her case was exposed.

MORE than a year after it began an audit of its tracing and information records to identify any cases involving illegal activity, the Adoption Authority (AAI) has still not offered a timescale as to its completion or if the findings will be made public.

THE Adoption Board has been at the centre of a number of scandals concerning how domestic and foreign adoptions have been carried out since adoption was made legal in 1952.

THE chief executive of the Adoption Board left the post at the beginning of July, it has been confirmed.

THE Adoption Board has confirmed it is to carry out an audit of its information and tracing service records to identify any cases involving illegal activity.

ANY adoption agency which engages in illegal practices should be de-registered and if necessary the case referred to An Garda Síochána, the chairman of the Adoption Board has said.

ADOPTION support groups have received a surge of calls to their helplines following the Irish Examiner’s special investigation into the issue of illegal adoption.

I JUST would like to say thank you to Tressa Reeves for having the courage to tell her story (April 19) to the nation in your special investigation.

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