The Adoption Rights Alliance has called for an investigation in to what they believe to be illegal adoptions.
On Tuesday 29 May, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone, has announced findings of 126 adoption cases run by St. Patrick’s Guild in Mount Merrion, Dublin, in which biological details were deliberately incorrectly registered.
The cases in question relate to adoptions that occurred in Ireland between 1946 and 1969.
It is believed that as many as 79 people may have no idea that they were adopted.
The registrations mean that some people placed by St. Patrick’s Guild had false information registered on their birth certificates.
The names of those they were placed alongside were incorrectly recorded as their birth parents.
Since those events came to light, the Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) has called for an investigation to take place into all such adoptions which it regards as illegal.
Speaking to Newstalk, the ARA said the following:
“In ARA’s experience, illegal adoptions were also facilitated by private homes or individuals, as well as the registered Adoption Societies.
“In fact, ARA and Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) have compiled a list of 182 institutions, agencies and individuals that were involved with unmarried mothers and their children.
“This list includes 57 private homes or facilitators, and the location of the records associated with these institutions remains unknown.”
Furthermore, in 2014 the then acting-CEO of the ARA, Kiernan Gildea, said that there may be ‘many thousands’ of ‘illegal registrations’.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
