Cynical Distraction Tactics Cannot Hide Institutions’ Role
By Susan Lohan
Amidst the tsunami of speculation about the whereabouts of the bodies of almost 800 children from the former Tuam mother-and-baby home, some sceptics have settled on the belief that 796 bodies could not be contained in this small plot of land. This is a cynical distraction from the core issue of ‘illegitimate’ children dying at such homes at a rate five times higher than that for ‘legitimate’ children, and not just from readily curable common childhood diseases but also, more sinisterly, from malnutrition. It is a distraction from the real point that no one knows where exactly the remains of these children are; a distraction from the question of why the State funded such homes “to care for” these children whilst they actively prevented their own mothers from doing so; and a distraction from the scandals that State inspection reports from these homes were not acted upon. It is, above all else, a distraction from the dawning realisation on the public’s part that all of these facts have been known by successive governments and have all been communicated to every single minister for children since the post came into existence in 2000. In July 2011, the Adoption Rights Alliance sent former minister for children and current Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald, a 153-page dossier on the issues surrounding mother-and-baby homes, in which we called for three separate statutory inquiries. One was on the historic treatment of mothers and children in all mother and baby homes; one on forced, illegal, and US adoptions; and one on illegal vaccine trials. Also included were our calls for the immediate safeguarding of all files relating to these homes and the adoptions they brokered, as well as our views on the shape of any future adoption information and tracing legislation. The minister met with us a month later to discuss the dossier, but said it was too far-reaching and that she merely wanted to know our views on the legislation. The role of the Adoption Authority of Ireland, known previously as the Adoption Board from 1952 to 2010, is also critical in this cover-up. In 2011, the AAI’s chairman, Geoffrey Shannon, participated in an RTE Prime Time documentary on illegal adoptions in which he gave a personal assurance that the AAI would investigate all and any information on any irregularities regarding historic adoptions. This unusual intervention followed a front-page expose by Irish Examiner reporter Conall O Fatharta on the case of Tressa Reeves, whose son was illegally adopted through a registered adoption agency, St Patrick’s Guild, who, along with with the AAI, had refused to assist Ms Reeves’ search for her son. The AAI perversely claimed it had no jurisdiction because Ms Reeves’ son was illegally adopted, but failed to mention it was its job to regulate and monitor all adoption agencies and that it had the power to copy all of St Patrick guild’s adoption records. Since then, we have assailed Ms Fitzgerald with letters, emails, and scheduled visits from adopted people who have attested either on their own behalf or behalf of their mothers to the scale of forced and illegal adoptions in Ireland but nothing has happened. When Archbishop Diarmuid Martin spoke on RTE’s This Week radio programme yesterday, he echoed every call that Adoption Rights Alliance has made to government since 2009. President Michael D Higgins too has expressed his revulsion and joined the calls for an inquiry. That the Government has not seen the writing on the wall merely re-affirms our view that it is unwilling or unable to move from their bunkered view and from their strategy of “deny ‘til they die”. Unfortunately for the Government, the bunker is collapsing and they risk being engulfed with the outrage and horror of a nation with a new moral code. * Susan Lohan is director of the Adoption Rights Alliance
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