WRITTEN on 02/06/2011
“To ask the Minister for Health and Children if he will investigate the situation whereby the 42 mother and baby homes which were allegedly involved in illegal or informal adoptions and closed in 1972 when the Health Act came into being claim to have no records for any of the women and children in their care; if he will seek to establish the existence and whereabouts of files such as medical and social work files pertaining to the persons involved and make them available to them, thus potentially enabling them to trace their biological families; and if he will make a statement on the matter.”
– Clare Daly
REPLY
“The issues raised by the Deputy relate to practices that were private arrangements which involved the birth of a child being registered as the child of those persons or families that took the child, rather than of the birth mother. The issuing of birth certificates is a matter for the Department of Social Protection, and suspected irregularities should be i.nvestigated by that Department. The scale of such illegal birth registrations is unknown.
The issue of historical documentation and records, where such information ever existed, was a matter for these private institutions. My understanding is that very little documentation existed, and where it did, the nature and secretiveness of the process means that any correlation of data is extremely difficult.”
Please email your objections to james.reilly@oireachtas.ie
