Pain of illegal adoption can only be healed with enquiry

In response to the excellent article by Conall O’Fatharta (Irish Examiner, February 4), I am outraged by Minister Fitzgerald’s response that all adoptions were carried out and sanctioned by the Adoption Board (AAI), after 1952.

Not so long ago I met with Minister Fitzgerald. Accompanying me was an ‘illegal’ adoptee whose adoption was sanctioned by the Adoption Board after 1952.

There are documented cases also that show that adoptions were carried out post-1952 where the natural parents were married and documents falsified. There has never been an audit of adoptions carried out and indeed there are no plans to.

Why is this, I wonder? Is it because the scale of ‘illegal’ and forced adoptions would be so astronomical that it would show the world how behind the times Ireland really is, on a par with third world policies.

She comments that: “Illegal adoptions referred only to illegal birth registrations, which meant the State was not involved as no formal adoption took place.”

I happen to come into that category and I can assure you that the HSE, which I believe is a government department, were fully aware of my situation, as an entry in my file (which I am lucky to have), states clearly: “Theresa still does not know she is not their child”. I was sixteen then, so they could wipe their hands clean of ‘the problem’.

I was 48 when I discovered I was not who I thought I was.

Forty-eight years without an identity — Minister Fitzgerald may not have read my file, otherwise she would know this and wouldn’t be making these statements. How can we have faith in a Minister who is supposed to have the best interests of the child at heart, totally ignoring what people like myself have gone through?

With so much evidence it’s time that a full public enquiry be launched, and time to give every Irish man and woman their identity, which is not a favour, but our basic human right.

Theresa Hiney

Tinggal

Poole

Dorset

England