Authority admits thousands of adoptions illegal

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

The controversial claims clash with statements from the then children’s minister and now justice minister, Frances Fitzgerald, who told the Dáil last year that every adoption carried out by the State was legal.

Susan Lohan of the Adoption Rights Alliance said she was “astonished” the AAI revealed the figures, as her organisation has campaigned for years for an investigation into the alleged practice. No audit of adoption records held by the AAI, HSE or religious adoption agencies has ever being carried out.