Top from left: Professor Geoffrey Shannon, Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone, Cormac Quinlan, Director of Transformation and Policy, at a news conference in Government Buildings today about the 126 cases where births were incorrectly registered between 1946 and 1969.
This afternoon.
Minister for Children Katherine Zappone said that following an initial examination of around 13,500 records from St Patrick’s Guild, Tusla was able to identify the incorrect registrations because, unusually, there was a marker specifying “adopted from birth” on the record.
The minister said further cases may emerge and in some of the 129 cases these people may not know they were adopted.
She said there is no record for 79 of them ever contacting the adoption society, while 31 were in contact but may not be fully aware of the illegal registration.
Tusla will now contact people in the 126 cases according to the minister because “people have a right to know who they are”.
[Incorrect or ‘false’ registrations occur where a child is placed with a couple or individual who was not the parent, but the birth is then registered as if the child had been born to that couple or individual]
126 people identified as having had births incorrectly registered by adoption agency (RTÉ)
Rollingnews
Update:
Via The Coalition of Mother And Baby home Survivors (CMABS):
The Government admitted today they have just “discovered’ dozens or false birth registrations in the Saint Patrick’s Guild adoption agency files.
Once again, this is just the tip of a very large iceberg of fraud, forgery, baby trafficking, child abduction and criminal activity by rogue Irish adoption agencies who have destroyed tens of thousands of innocent peoples’ lives.
It’s important to note that the Government has known all about this for more than 20 years when Alan Shatter and Francis Fitzgerald as opposition TDs, in the Dáil, made detailed speeches about illegal practices in adoption agencies and named Saint Patrick’s Guild.
Shatter and Fitzgerald both went on to become Ministers for Justice and yet never lifted a finger while in office. Francis Fitzgerald was also a former social worker and Minister for Children with direct responsibility for these matters, and yet did nothing in office despite constant demands to take urgent action.
It is also important to note that the adoption community has been calling for an audit of Saint Patrick’s Guild files, and other agencies, for over 20 years.
Government after government have willfully ignored such calls while adoptees have died by the thousands.
Perhaps the most vital issue here is that illegally adopted people have spent generations going to their Doctors and hospitals and unknowingly giving false – and potentially lethal – family medical histories that do not in fact relate to them. Illegal adoptees carry on this practice for their children and even their grandchildren.
Theresa Hiney who founded the ‘Adopted Illegally Ireland’ group in 2008, has been a voice in the wilderness loudly demanding immediate action for more than 10 years and has been ignored by officialdom who are terrified of what audits of the adoption agencies will reveal.
Clare Daly T. has tackled successive Governments on these issues in the Dáil since 2012 and has been rebuffed and sneered at by a one Minister after another who have refused to take action.
Daly has been proved the only TD who could see the injustice and campaigned with the adoption and survivor communities while everyone else ran and hid.
The survivor and adoptee communities demand IMMEDIATE ACTION to tackle this issue. Theresa Hiney, ‘Adopted Illegally Ireland’, and the ‘Coalition of Mother And Baby homes Survivors’ renew our years old joint call for a dedicated unit made up of civil servants, Gardai and social workers, to actively investigate this matter and inform illegal adoptees of their status.
CMABS notes the Gardai have been sent in. A through, well resourced, and full criminal investigation needs to follow as a matter of urgency.”
CMABS (Facebook)
Thanks Paul Redmond
is there nothing we won’t completely fupp up in this country?
purposefully kept quiet until after the repeal referendum, no doubt
Everyone should
resignbe fired.Everyone.
+1946 to 1969
I think you might find they are all dead
I just wanted them fired – not killed…
lots of people don’t know they are adopted?
Sounds like it. Huge issues for some poor souls when they find out their parents have been lying to them all their lives.
I’d be a bit more worried about people who may have married their brother or sister. Familial attraction. Further, if you are not a ‘natural’ child, or an adopted child, you cannot inherit from the strangers you thought were your parents.
Probably a few cases within the family, where their sister was their mum.
Far from uncommon back in the day
Used to know a dude who knew his sister was his mum but she wasn’t aware he did. Was terribly sad. To this day I can’t understand why his Mum(Granny) told him. Cruel if you ask me.
Same situation on the road where I grew up. The lad himself was a true nutter :-D Two years old and he was furiously riding his tricycle at top speed, stark naked, around our cul de sac, pursued by his family who didn’t want to scandalise the neighbours! He just cracked me up. That lad was raised in a home, and a neighbourhood, where he was loved. I doubt if he had any problems.
Wonder who facilitated the majority of these illegal adoptions. hmm? any guesses?
Not a problem from now on…
Well I should hope not.
Perhaps we’re looking at this through different prisms
No, I’m pretty sure I got the point you’re making clear enough. Trying to link this to the referendum is a poor effort at best.
The blessed referendum, thou shalt not speak ill of repeal
No it’s just shoddy. If there was a valid point to be made, sure. But you’re attempting to use it for petty point scoring.
If I wanted to I could make an equally nasty and petty point linking pro-lifers and adoption just because, but I’d really rather not.
An easy position to take if you’re a child who was wanted by their parents.
Really? You think so. That’s funny, you see, because I’m not the one here drawing parallels between abortion and a lack of children to adopt in the world. There are an estimated 153 million children who are up for adoption worldwide.
It’s pretty telling, don’t you think, that on a story about people who are adopted, you chose to bring it back to the referendum.
I think it’s pretty telling that a number of pro choice people have told me that adoption doesn’t exist in Ireland anymore and therefore putting a child up for adoption isn’t an option anymore.
There are all sorts of international issues we can take issue with but back at home there are a cohort of people who were unwanted pregnancies and got to live their lives as adopted children,who if abortion had been available in the past may not have been given the chance to live. I don’t agree that abortion is completely immoral, but I do think the situation is a little more nuanced than some would have us believe. It’s telling that you chose to reply to me and to take such a defensive tone when you questioned my comment. You didn’t have to say anything, you could have left it alone but you had to take me to task, you had to prove how right you are. Sometimes it’s not about being right, sometimes it’s just not that simple.
I have never stated abortion doesn’t exist, but you’re right – it has been used as an argument for repealing the eighth. I don’t agree with it being used as an argument in that way. Adoption is a very separate issue, imo.
And it is nuanced, yes. I won’t pretend to have any experience with the topic, apart from knowing a few people who were adopted and hearing their experiences. I would say that unless you are intimately acquainted with the process it would be hard to know.
But the point remains, it was you who made the initial comment and with the intent of referencing the referendum result. I took issue with it because they are two separate issues.
They are related, especially to people who have been lucky enough to have been adopted and not aborted. You are right, you don’t know the reality, perhaps some adopted people agree wholeheartedly with abortion for any reason, but in the back of most adopted people’s mind it will be a case of “that could have been me”, and it’s a difficult voice to silence as it is an honest one.
Hah, upon rereading:
I never said *adoption* doesn’t exist in Ireland.
(I’d love an edit button for the app you know… HINT HINT LADS)
I didn’t say that you said that. I said other people had said it. Reread again. So close to being right
Nullzero, do you use any other names when posting on this site? And if so why?
I ask because your attempt to link these two issues is very low.
to give the impression he/she is not alone
No I don’t. How is it low to link the two issues? Is it because it doesn’t chime with the rhetoric of “abortion is always wonderful”?
Why?
Were there no depths to the depravity of the religious orders? What utter, utter ‘love curtains’.
John, it appears there were no depths these cankerous b**tards would not plumb – if the money was right.
Jesus. Will be terrible distress for some. Weren’t adoptive parents very deceitful though?
Yes and probably ruin some of their relationships in the process of this coming out.
This is well meaning but nonsensical. How do you find people of that age? Dead emigrated etc
This is going to rip some families to the core :(
Note that there are four people in the photo, but only three get a mention :-D Dearie me! Poor oul Frannie.