Department refuses to reveal how many records will be examined in illegal adoptions audit

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has refused to say how many adoption records will be examined as part of the “scoping exercise” investigating the scale of illegal adoptions.

The audit was announced at the end of May following the discovery by Tusla of 126 cases in which births were illegally registered between 1946 and 1969 in the records of St Patrick’s Guild. The records transferred to the agency in 2016.