A new report into illegal adoptions in this country has recommended the establishment of a formal inquiry after it found the State was aware of the practice for decades.
The report, compiled by the Government’s special rapporteur on child protection Conor O’Mahony, found that State authorities in the 1950s and 1960s “consciously turned a blind eye” to the practice and that very little has been done since.
The report has recommended the establishment of a truth commission on adoption.
This would seek to establish the truth around the violation of rights, to secure accountability of those responsible and to recommend reforms.
“Of the various aims set out above, establishing the truth seems the most important, since none of the other aims can be accomplished until the truth has been established,” Mr O’Mahony writes.
The report also says that it is a matter for people affected by the practice of illegal birth registrations whether they wish to receive a State apology but that it should be forthcoming if they do.
Illegal birth registrations happen when a birth certificate is falsified to register a child as having been born to his or her adoptive parents. The practice has been a criminal offence in Ireland since 1874.
In 2018, Tusla confirmed to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs that at least 126 children adopted through St Patrick's Guild Adoption Society had been the subject of an illegal birth registration. The number of confirmed cases has since risen to 151.
The 39-page report by Mr O’Mahony concludes that the State was aware of the practice of illegal birth registration for decades before any serious action was taken to investigate the practice and mitigate its effects “and that the action taken to date falls short of remedying the violation of the right to identity for many of those affected.”
“The ad hoc, piecemeal and delayed reaction of the various State bodies to illegal birth registrations failed to discharge the State’s obligation to ensure accurate registration of births and to correct inaccurate registrations, and exacerbated the impact of the practice on affected individuals.”
The report recommends a two-pronged approach in terms of further examining the extent of the issues.
A specialist tracing team should be established and provided with ring-fenced resources to ensure their work does not negatively impact on other adoption tracing work.
The team should conduct a full trace on files flagged by Tusla as suspicious in the course of a previous independent review process.
Files currently in private ownership, which to date have not been reviewed for evidence of illegal birth registration, should be subject to an initial sample review by the specialist team followed by whatever more detailed review is warranted by the results of the initial review.
A person who suspects they may have been subjected to an illegal birth registration should also have the right to request an expedited review of cases from the team.
“Such reviews should involve the use of both documentary and DNA evidence.”
In his report, Mr O’Mahony says that it is a “well-known legal maxim that justice delayed is justice denied.”
“The delay in taking action to address the issue of illegal birth registrations has greatly exacerbated the original violation of the right to identity. The passage of several decades means that many of the parents and some of the children affected have died; thus, they have been denied any opportunity of finding out about the violation of the right to identity and the possibility of rectifying it and re-establishing contact with their relatives.”
From an ethical perspective, the report says there can be “no question of the State withholding information from persons affected by illegal birth registration on the basis of a paternalistic concern that this might be distressing for those individuals.”
“Such an approach would involve a continued violation of the right to identity and a denial of any agency to the individuals involved. It is not the State’s choice to make.”
The report also says that “doing nothing is not an option.”
“It would be indefensible for the Government to be in receipt of an independent expert review which raises suspicions about the legality of a potentially significant number of adoptions, but to choose to take no further action to investigate these suspicions.”
Because of the significant and complex resource challenges, the report recommends the targeted approach to further investigating the matter.
Clodagh Malone, founder of Beyond Adoption Ireland, which reunites adopted people with their birth families, said she “very much welcomed” Prof O’Mahony’s recommendation of a State inquiry into the practice of illegal adoptions and a State apology.
“It doesn’t give them back what they have lost but it certainly will give them some type of closure,” she told The Irish Times.
She said the inquiry needed to be established quickly given that many survivors of illegal adoptions were approaching retirement age and many have medical issues, which they may be helped with if they knew their biological families and the medical histories of their birth families.
“When people don’t know where they came from and they don’t know that their adopted family are not their people, they don’t know their medical history, their DNA or personality traits, but medical history is a huge thing for adopted people,” she said.
