Daly wants inquiry into illegal Irish adoptions
Speaking at a press conference in Dublin, independent TD Clare Daly described the issue of illegal and forced adoptions as Ireland’s next “horror story”.
Her comments come after a number of adoption groups recently met with Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald to discuss the issue.
Theresa Tinggal, who only found out she was illegally adopted 11 years ago at the age of 48, said she felt she was being “fobbed off the whole time” at the meeting.
Adopted people currently have no right to their adoption records, birth certificate or medical records. Information and tracing legislation for adopted people and natural parents has been promised as a priority since 1997.
Ms Fitzgerald had previously promised legislation would be brought forth by the end of 2012.
This has now been put back until 2014.
Ms Fitzgerald has stressed such delays are due to the fact that the Government has to deal with constitutional issues around privacy and a Supreme Court ruling that said the mother’s right to privacy would have to be balanced against the adopted person’s right to know.
The Adoption Authority (AAI) has consistently refused to inspect all files held by accredited adoption agencies, despite evidence that some have arranged illegal adoptions. In fact, St Patrick’s Guild, which has admitted its involvement in the practice, was the first agency accredited by the AAI under the Adoption Act 2010.
The AAI instead carried out an audit of its own records in 2011, uncovering just 50 cases of illegal adoptions. Adopted people and natural parents slammed the audit as “cosmetic”, as it excluded the huge archive of adoption records held by religious agencies and the HSE.
The AAI’s refusal to carry out a complete audit comes in spite of its chairman Geoffrey Shannon giving a personal commitment to deal with the issue in May 2010.
Earlier this year, the Australian prime minister offered a state apology to thousands of unmarried mothers who were forced by government policies to give up their children for adoption over several decades.
A state committee found that, among unmarried mothers, adoption rates were as high as 60% in the late 1960s. By contrast, in Ireland in 1967, 97% of all children born outside of marriage were put up for adoption.
