Illegal birth registrations: Reynolds Review only repeated what we already knew

The Reynolds Review was not, nor was it ever intended to be, a review into illegal adoptions. It was a review of a small sample to find labels or "markers" which might indicate an illegal birth registration and it raises important questions, writes Conall O Fatharta

In all of these thousands of “incomplete files”, where an adoption process was commenced but never completed, do we know what happened to the child? File photo

The Reynolds Review into illegal birth registrations didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. And know for quite a long time. It was a review to see if we need another review. 

Its entire raison d’etre was to delay and buy time. It was supposed to be completed by October 2018. It submitted its report in May 2019. It wasn’t published until this week.