IRELAND
Irish Examiner
Thursday, April 13, 2017
The language and scope of the Mother and Baby Home Commission is questionable, says Conall Ó Fátharta
WE WAITED seven months for the Government to publish the second interim report of the Commission to Inquire into Mother and Baby Homes. It did not make for encouraging reading.
Running to 16 pages, the report has three main sections — on redress, its terms of reference, and on the issue of the false registration of births.
However, on the issue of the real elephant in the room — illegal adoptions — it was remarkably, and worryingly, lukewarm. In fact, the section is not even titled “illegal adoptions”. It is given the more euphemistic title — one favoured by government departments — “false registration of birth”.
While the commission notes that illegal adoptions cover a “wide variety of situations including actions taken (or not taken) prior to the adoption and illegality in the adoption orders made”, it makes no effort to highlight any of these. Instead, the focus of the section is on false (or more accurately, illegal) birth registrations. These occurred where the birth was registered in the name of adoptive parents and — crucially, from the State’s perspective — no formal adoption order was ever made.
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