State accused of ‘deny until they die’ policy on adoption tracing rights

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.

In a co-authored piece in today’s Irish Examiner, UCC’s Aisling Parke and Simone McCaughren, along with the Adoption Rights Alliance, hit out at Ireland’s “inadequate” adoption legislation and call for “urgent reform” to provide tracing and information rights for tens of thousands of adopted people.

Such legislation has been promised by every government since 1997. The current Government has, so far, offered no timescale for bringing in legislation.