Frances Fitzgerald: I saw baby dossier in 2011

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.

Ms Fitzgerald is coming under pressure to explain why she failed to act on the issue during her three years in office.

The 131-page dossier prepared by the Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) called for a statutory inquiry into the homes, vaccine trials carried out in them and the scale of forced and illegal adoptions arranged in such institutions.