Irish Examiner view: State was complicit in failed birth registration system
Report found that the State had known of illegal birth registrations for decades and done little about it. Picture: Pexels
The history of adoption in this country and the State’s continuing failure to remedy the many wrongs perpetrated on adoptees remains a shocking story of institutional failing.
This was yet again highlighted yesterday with the publication of the report by the Government’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection which found that the State had known of illegal birth registrations for decades and done little about it, a point that won’t come as a surprise to our readers.
There appears to be no end to the State’s complicity in a vile and often unforgivable system which has continued to traumatise its victims.
The report maintains that as many as 20,000 individuals may have been affected by illegal birth registrations, and states that action taken to date “falls short” of remedying the violation of the right to identity for those affected.
Given these failures, surely it is now beyond time that all extant files on illegal birth registrations were made available to those people effectively forced to live in the shadows because of the failings of those who were supposed to be safeguarding their welfare.
The current Government needs to move beyond the failings of previous administrations quickly and authoritatively in order to give people the necessary information to allow them to find the truth of their ancestry and rebuild their lives accordingly.
Too much time has already been lost through misplaced loyalty to failed institutions and downright misinformation.
It is time to give people their lives and their dignity back, without further prevarication.
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