Fears baby home probe will exclude illegal adoptions

By Conall ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner
February 2, 2015

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/fears-baby-home-probe-will-exclude-illegal-adoptions-310183.html

Adoption campaigners are concerned that tens of thousands of unmarried women and girls whose children were forcibly or illegally adopted will be excluded from the upcoming mother and baby homes inquiry.

In a briefing note prepared for all TDs and senators in advance of last week’s second Dáil debate on the terms of reference for the inquiry, Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) expressed concern that the Government was determined to avoid fully examining the scale of forced and illegal adoptions.

The group argued that most illegal adoptions were undocumented and were carried out by individuals and institutions with no connection to mother and baby homes.

It said it feared that the State’s role through the then Adoption Board, State-funded maternity hospitals and all bar a handful of adoption agencies “will either not be uncovered or will be entirely underestimated”.

ARA cited St Patrick’s Guild as an example of an adoption agency excluded from the inquiry, pointing out it has been criticised in the Dáil by former justice minister Alan Shatter and current justice minister Frances Fitzgerald for issuing false and misleading information to mothers and children looking for one another.

Meanwhile, Tánaiste Joan Burton, TD Anne Ferris and Fianna Fáil senator Averil Power spoke to Miriam O’Callaghan about their experiences as adopted people and the difficulties they faced finding their natural mothers.

Ms Burton, who never got to meet her mother, recalled writing a letter to St Patrick’s Guild adoption agency asking if they would pass her letter to her mother.

“And I always remember, I got the letter back carefully re-sealed saying ‘No way’,” she said.

Ms Power said growing up as an adopted person, she always felt a “huge hole” in her life through not knowing her identity.

“I used to get particularly sad on my birthday, Christmas and family times. I’d be thinking about my mum and wondering where is she, is she ok, how have things turned out for her, do I have brothers and sisters.

“As I got older, I just felt there was this huge hole in my life,” she said.