Labour's Joan Burton has opened up about her own adoption and called for adoptees to be allowed access to their birth certificates.

Ms Burton was speaking after a Commission of investigation was launched into mother and baby homes following the discovery of a mass burial ground in Tuam, Co Galway.

She told Newstalk Breakfast: "I have a personal interest in all of this, as a child I was adopted and the matters are of a very significant concern to me, as well as of political concern.

"That legislation has existed in Scotland for decades, and in the UK. I think there has been a enormous amount of work done on it and there are different points of view.

"One is that the issue can be addressed legally and the other that a constitutional referendum is required.

"Some people who have been adopted who wish to trace and some don't and you have to have this in mind, this has to be respected."

Ms Burton, who was born in Carlow in 1949 and taken to a mother and baby home three months later, didn't track down her family roots until after her mother died.

The finance spokeswoman was then fostered by Dubliners Bridie and John Burton before they adopted her.